


Commencement

by Vhetin1138



Series: White Snow: Year 1 [1]
Category: Star Wars, Star Wars Legends - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Action, Adventure, Gen, OC, Sci-Fi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-05
Updated: 2017-01-21
Packaged: 2018-07-29 11:29:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 36,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7682791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vhetin1138/pseuds/Vhetin1138
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Mandalorian bounty hunter takes a contract that will change his life forever. A captive Imperial, falsely accused of treason, sets out on a journey that will take her across the galaxy and back again.</p><p>Rated T for violence and language.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Long Time Ago...

_“Teh arpat’ikase drashaar dral kurshise.”_

_“From tiny seeds grow mighty trees.”_

_-_ Mandalorian proverb

**_~~~~~~~~_ **

**BlueSend Forest Complex, Corulag**

Rain poured from the sky in driving sheets, pelting against the muddy ground in a staccato rhythm reminiscent of drumrolls. Roiling, purple-black clouds sent a brilliant fork of lightning through the air. The accompanying clap of thunder was close and loud enough to deafen a man. After a few moments the rumbling peal faded into the distance, leaving those newcomers stuck in the downpour to shake their heads in a vain attempt to clear their ringing ears.

The soldier in white had long ago grown accustomed to the sound of thunder. Months of being assigned to an outpost under endlessly-stormy skies tended to acclimatize one to traumatic intrusions on the senses. Additionally, his armor helped keep back the worst of the sound, as his helmet's auditory dampeners automatically filtered down the decibel level of his surroundings to protect his hearing. So when thunder cracked overhead, it sounded like little more than a discontented grumble.

Corporal Axes Darion, otherwise known by his serial number TX-219, squinted through the eye-shaped visors of his helmet and watched rain dribble down the transparisteel just centimeters from his eyes. He wiped his visor with an irritated huff, clearing the rainwater that obscured his vision. Where they were going, he was sure he'd need to see as clearly as possible.

The forest ahead was dark and foreboding, full of ominously crackling branches and strange bird calls, but he knew local patrols kept the wildlife a good distance from the prison complex. The last thing Command needed was some jumped-up treewalker getting too near the perimeter defenses and frying itself on the electrified barrier fences. Such an occurrence could potentially short out the energy junction supplying power to the entire facility. _That_  would be catastrophic.

He sighed and hefted his rifle, marching with the others toward the trees. 

_When I first heard I was being transferred to a maximum security prison,_ he thought to himself,  _I thought this post would be exciting. Should have known that guard duty is guard duty, no matter where you're assigned._

For a maximum security prison, BlueSend was spectacularly boring. The prisoners misbehaved from time to time, but it was all bluster. A cautionary stun shot from one of the guards put them in their place quickly enough and any thoughts of rising up were quickly and efficiently quelled by the local riot troopers. After months of droning through day after dull day, TX-219 almost wished a prisoner or two would manage to orchestrate an escape. It would at least give the guards some target practice.

"Eyes sharp," their sergeant growled from the head of the group. They entered the tree line, the pattering rain tapering off as they passed beneath the sheltering branches of the forest's canopy. TX wiped his visor clear again, barely able to see through the water-streaked apertures in his helmet.

" _Eyes sharp for what?_ " said his patrol buddy marching next to him. He spoke over their private helmet-to-helmet communicators so the sergeant couldn't overhear them. " _These patrols haven't caught sight of anything bigger than a twig monkey in weeks. There's nothing in this forest_. _Nothing dangerous at least._ "

"Still," TX replied, "it beats guard duty back at base. I'd rather be out here than marching up and down that barrier wall any day."

" _At least BlueSend is_ clean _,"_ his buddy murmured. He lifted his boot, shaking his head at finding the pristine white armor splattered with a thick layer of black-brown mud. " _It'll take hours to get this crap scrubbed off."_

"Just keep focused on the patrol," TX-219 said. "Shift's done at nineteen-hundred and the grav-ball game is right after that."

" _Yeah. Something to look forward to, at least._ "

A bird called forlornly somewhere off in the trees and thunder rumbled overhead again, but the forest was otherwise silent. TX checked his holographic heads-up display – which showed him readouts of everything his suit's scanners could pick up, from comm channels to the patrol's medical status to the current ambush probability of their immediate surroundings – and saw that their patrol route would carry them right through the Dark Zone. Once inside, the dense foliage would cut off their communication back to BlueSend command.

TX hefted his rifle again, struggling to maintain his pace in the thick layer of mud under his feet. It looked like the entire six-man patrol was having similar difficulties. They were all wobbling and stumbling in the mire like a bunch of punch-drunk Trandoshans. One soldier lost his footing completely and went tumbling into the mud.

_This rain isn't letting up any time soon_ , TX thought, wiping off his visor again.  _If this keeps up, Corulag will get more annual rain than Kamino._

He was about to say as much to his buddy when their sergeant raised a fist, ordering them to come to a stop. The group slowly filed to a halt behind him, still slipping in the mud. 

"We're entering the Dark Zone,” the sergeant barked. ‘Keep your comms off and your weapons ready."

" _Sir_!" came the dutiful response. The patrol troopers cycled up their weapons, ready to fire at a moment's notice. At the sergeant's command they set off again at a slow, cautious pace. TX shivered a little despite himself.

The Dark Zone had always creeped him out. The trees grew so dense here, their branches so interwoven, that they interfered with comm signals and cut off any hope for light to hit the ground far beneath. The forest here was dark and dangerous, with tree branches winding across the road like the tendrils of some giant woodland beast, eager to snatch up and consume any unwary soldier who strayed too near. The entire area had such an eerie feeling about it that the locals had likened the sensation to the old Jedi myths about the dark side of the Force, hence its name: the Dark Zone. Fortunately it was only a mile or so from command, so any sounds of commotion would probably be heard back at base. TX comforted himself with the knowledge that reinforcements were only minutes away.

Another blinding flash of lightning and accompanying burst of thunder overhead. TX flinched despite his helmet systems and nervously glanced up into the canopy. Rain dribbled down between the gnarled, interwoven branches that stretched overhead. The leaves rustled and a bird hooted far above, the call echoing through the lonely forest.

_Would they even hear us in this weather? I'm not sure._

They hiked along in relative silence for a few moments before the same trooper slipped and fell in the mud a second time. The other soldiers laughed at their fellow's clumsiness, but the sergeant was not as amused. He stormed through the column of troopers, hauled the clumsy private to his feet, and growled, "The next time you lose your footing, soldier, you're on report. Now get your balance and let's-"

A surprised shout came from TX's patrol buddy at the rear of the group. TX sighed and thought,  _If he slipped too, we're definitely gonna be in the poodoo_.

But when he looked back, his patrol buddy was nowhere to be seen. Other troopers were also looking around in confusion, searching all around for their missing comrade. TX tensed in anxiety and confusion; his buddy’s IFF tag was offline as well. It was like he had vanished into thin air.

"What? Where'd he go? He was right here!"

"Must have fallen behind a while ago, I guess," another trooper said with a shrug. "We may not have noticed he was-"

Their wonderings were cut short by a sharp crackle of branches at the head of the group and another shout, this time from the sergeant. The knot of white-clad soldiers spun, weapons raised, to find the sergeant backing frantically away from TX's patrol buddy.

The missing trooper was dead, hanging by his ankles from the trees ahead of them. His boots had been bound together by a length of durable whipcord and a still-smoking burn hole was seared through his chest plate. He swung back and forth lazily in the chill forest breeze, strung from branches high up in the canopy above them.

"What the kriff!" one of the troopers shouted. "What happened to him?"

TX-219 didn't reply and instead followed the whipcord up into the canopy. Up, up, up, to the branch where it was tied. He tightened his grip on his rifle as he did, eyes stretching wide at the sight that awaited him.

Sitting on the branch was a man.

"Kriff," their sergeant snarled. "Open fire! Open fire!"

The remaining troopers raised their weapons to fire, but by the time they did the figure was gone, vanishing into the trees with the speed and grace of a nexu on the prowl. They emptied their rifles into open air for a few moments before reason caught hold and they released the firing studs. One after another, their guns fell silent.

TX was breathing hard, his respiration echoing loudly within the confines of his helmet. It looked like the other troopers were just as winded; shock could take a toll on even the most grizzled of soldiers.

One of th troopers glanced at the sergeant. “What the kriff was that thing?”

“Did we get it? Is it dead?”

The sergeant raised a fist, signaling them to be quiet. He took a cautious step forward, finger hovering over the firing stud of his weapon. When nothing leaped from the shadows to attack, he stepped forward again.

A barbed durasteel grapple sliced out of the trees with an angry whistle. It hit the sergeant in the chest, piercing his white chest plate with a loud _crack_ , splintering the plastoid and sending shards of armor flying into the air. The man cried out in equal parts pain and surprise, then was yanked away into the trees and out of sight. He let out a high-pitched scream of pain and terror, then his voice was abruptly cut short.

The troopers stood, staring in shock and unsure what to do. TX gulped loudly, making sure to reload his weapon before more soldiers were cut down. Deep in the forest, the same bird let out another mournful call.

With a cacophony of crackling branches, the sergeant fell into view again, bound by the ankles and hanging from the trees like TX's patrol buddy a little further down the path. He wasn't moving, and his chest plate was smeared with a brilliant swathe of crimson.

" _Kriff_ , man!" one of the troopers shouted. "What do we do? What  _is_  that thing?"

TX was about to speak when he heard a strange synthetic buzz and a glowing bar of bright blue sailed down out of the trees. The bar of light, connected to some kind of long pole, speared the panicking trooper through the chest. There was a synthetic _snap_ and a shower of sparks, drawing shouts of surprise and fear from the rest of the patrol. The man screamed, clutching at the bubbling and melting plastoid of his chest plate.

In the next moment, something dark and angular, vaguely humanoid in appearance, dropped down out of the trees. It landed in the middle of their group, instantly lashing out with one leg to knock the nearest stormtrooper onto his back. The figure produced a pistol from his shadowy form and fired twice into the man's helmet. The trooper twitched and fell still.

Barely pausing, the man pivoted, holstered his pistol, and yanked the long bar with the glowing blue blade from the chest of the still-flailing trooper in front of him. The wounded man fell to the ground while the dark figure spun, whirling the glowing weapon over a rounded, dome-shaped head. He brought the weapon down, carving another soldier's chest plate in two before pivoting on one foot and stabbing another through the stomach. A quick boot to the face felled that trooper and the man moved on to the final two Imperials left standing.

The trooper standing next to TX-219 managed to snap off a lucky shot.. It popped against their attacker’s chest, just over his heart, with a _crack_ and a shower of sparks, but didn’t slow him down. He hefted his weapon and slashed, carving the trooper's rifle in two before reversing the direction of the blade and taking both the soldier's hands off at the wrists. He then spun and hit the screaming trooper in the throat with one heavy boot, silencing him for good.

After only moments, TX was the last remaining member of his patrol. Over course of the short and frantic battle, he hadn't fired a shot. He hadn't even raised his rifle. He was frozen in equal parts horror and morbid curiosity, staring at the dark figure that was towering over the corpse of the handless trooper and all his other squad mates.

His training finally took over, screaming at him to engage the hostile. His hands were shaking, knees knocking together so hard that his armor plates clattered together. But slowly, with a quivering, terrified motion, he raised his rifle.

"Not a good idea." There was a violent hum from the blue blade as the figure pointed the glowing weapon at him, a cautionary motion meant to warn him to stand down. TX knew he should probably give up, but the logical side of his brain seemed to have temporarily shut down.

 "Put the weapon down.” The man’s voice was soft and predatory, like the snarl of a Kashyyyk vine tiger sizing up its prey. “You can still walk away."

But TX wasn't listening any more. He tightened his finger over the firing stud, his aim shaking wildly. He could feel his heart pounding as the dark man took a step toward him. The blue blade hissed and sizzled in the drizzle of rain.

"Last chance,  _vod_. Weapon down or you'll force my hand."

TX was beyond the capacity for rational thought. In next moment he made the decision that ended his life.

He squeezed his eyes shut and fired. The rifle kicked in his hand and there was a loud _pow_ as a blaster bolt was loosed from the barrel. A split-second later there was an even louder clang of the bolt slamming against hard metal.

TX hesitantly opened his eyes, shivering uncontrollably. The dark figure had fallen back a few steps, holding a hand to his head. He let out a low, snarled curse, then looked back at TX-219 and finally stepped into the light. TX saw scarred and burned metal, the result of his blaster shot, and a reflective, black-tinted T-visor.

_A Mandalorian_ , TX thought to himself, shaking harder than ever now.  _I just shot a_ Mandalorian.

The black-armored man took another threatening step forward and hissed, "Big mistake,  _vod_."

Seconds later, TX's scream rang out through the Dark Zone.

~~~~~~~

Cin Vhetin took a step back from the smoldering body of the offending stormtrooper and deactivated his lightsaber pike. He was breathing hard, head throbbing from the shot he'd taken to the helmet dome. He cursed again, then clipped his pike back to the clips set against his jetpack and triggered his comm unit.

"Go for secure," he said. "I need a sitrep."

" _Doesn't look like anyone noticed your theatrics_ ," came the response. " _We're good as long as you hurry to the outpost._ "

"I'm on my way," Vhetin replied. He considered hiding the bodies of the trooper patrol and quickly decided against it. He didn't have time, and everyone at the prison outpost would know he was there soon enough. "Keep me notified of anything out of the ordinary."

" _Roger_. Oya."

" _Oya_ ," Vhetin murmured. He took one last look at the stormtroopers splayed out across the forest floor, then set off at a sprint into the trees. A well-timed jump off a large stump launched him up into some low-hanging branches, where he clambered up and took off through the treetops, unseen by anything that moved below.


	2. The VIP

**High orbit, Corulag system, twenty-four hours earlier**

Sunlight streamed down onto the daylight side of the gray-green world of Corulag. It was interrupted only as the distinctive triangular shape of an Imperial Star Destroyer drifted between the sun and the planet, blocking the brilliant light from the Corulag system's primary star. The shadow was not powerful enough to stretch all the way down to the planet's surface, but it was more than enough to blot out the light to the many ships that darted beneath its massive hull like feeder fish beneath the bulk of a whaladon.

" _Nova-Ten, this is_ Talisman _hangar control. You are cleared for takeoff._ "

The pilot touched the green transmission button and replied, " _Talisman_ , Nova-Ten, roger. Beginning pre-flight checkout... tell us if you find something amiss out there, would you?"

" _Roger that, Nova-Ten. Everything looks green from here, but I'll send a droid down to make sure._ "

"Copy."

After the droid had finished its quick inspection and found nothing out of place, the pilot of the Nova-10 transport shuttle tapped a number of buttons, pulled back a red lever, and grasped the control yoke. The deck trembled beneath his boots as the engines warmed and the ship prepared to lift off.

" _Talisman_ Hangar Control, this is Nova-Ten. We're beginning takeoff and descent to BlueSend Naval Base."

" _Solid copy_ ," the HC officer said. There was a pause over the pilot's comm. " _And... good luck down there, Nova-Ten_."

The copilot clicked the comm once to signify they had heard the officer's message.

"Beginning flight conversion," the copilot reported. He twisted a lever to the right, then pulled down. "In three... two... one... flight conversion commencing."

With a low-pitched drone the port and starboard stabilizing wings of the shuttle folded down into an inverted-Y flight position and the landing craft sped out of the hangar bay, towards the planet's surface. The pilot let out a long breath he hadn't known he was holding.

Takeoff had gone off without a hitch, and that meant they were already almost halfway finished. Now all they needed to do was make it to the planet surface without incident.

_Just land,_ he thought,  _dump the passenger, and we'll be back to flying supply runs for BlueSend. No more VIP passenger ferrying. Just simple cargo hauling in our old ship._

He looked over at his copilot, who seemed to be thinking the exact same thing. The other man licked his dry lips and pressed his foot down on the accelerator pedal. The cockpit around them heated to a dull orange as the craft hit atmosphere, blocking sight through the front viewport as the ship tunneled its way to the planet's surface. The shuttle began to rock and shake wildly for a few moments before the artificial gravity compensators calmed most of the shaking in the interior of the ship.

After a few tense minutes the craft broke free of the planet's atmosphere, blasting clouds aside as it passed. The pilot wiped his forehead, partly to calm his racing heart and partly to keep the sweat from his eyes. He stole a glance over his shoulder, at the closed door to the small passenger bay. To think, that tiny barrier of durasteel was all that separated the two pilots from… _him_.

_Someone like that isn't human._ The pilot shuddered at the mere thought. _He can't be._

The shuttle flew in low beneath the rain-swollen clouds that shrouded the forest near BlueSend prison. The roar from the engines made animals and Imperials alike look up, squinting into the rain that fell from the dark sky. Lightning forked down into the forest with loud explosions of thunder, muted by the thick plates of the ship's hull. The shuttle swerved to miss a tall conifer tree and the pilot grunted and pushed his gray cap further back on his head. Nervous sweat beaded his forehead.

"Do you think I should go back and check on our passenger?"

The copilot man looked over at him with a look of indignation on his face, as if the pilot should be ashamed for even raising the question. "If you want to. _I'm_ not going back there."

The man chewed over his words for a moment, then shrugged anxiously and turned back to the instruments. The pilot shuddered and fought down the nausea that rose in his throat. "You're right," he said. "I think he'll be fine. And the sooner we finish this run the better."

Almost right on cue the comm crackled and the familiar voice of BlueSend Naval Base's ground control officer filled the cockpit. " _Nova-Ten, this is BlueSend Ground Control. Come in Nova-Ten. We have you on our scopes. Transmit landing code for clearance to land._ "

The copilot radioed back, "Roger BlueSend GC. Transmitting now."

He hit a red button to engage the autopilot while he typed in the 10-number, 7-letter code he had been forced to memorize at the start of their flight. After he had finished, he hit the transmission button and sent the message.

There was a pause of about fifteen seconds during which the BlueSend Ground Control officer checked the code clearance against the registered codes in the Imperial databanks. They were probably the longest fifteen seconds of the pilot's life and he wished that the GC officer had just granted him clearance without checking. Surely the prestige of their passenger warranted some kind of special treatment? But then again, that would be against _protocol_ , and _protocol_ was synonymous with _law_ these days.

After a few anxious moments, the comm crackled again and BlueSend GC's voice came back. " _Nova-Ten, you have clearance to land. You will be escorted to BlueSend Base by a squadron of TIE Interceptors. Follow their present course and proceed to landing pad Delta-Twenty. Any deviation from that course and you will be shot down._ "

_Now_   _that wouldn't be such a good idea,_ the pilot thought,  _considering the passenger we have aboard_.

He groaned quietly as two lines of angular Imperial TIE Interceptors, four to a line, fell into escort position next to them with their recognizable screeching roar.

_I never have to follow Interceptors to base on a normal day._ All this extra drama was too much for him. He vastly preferred simple everyday cargo runs to this VIP passenger ferrying. 

_I just want to get out of here_ , he thought with a discontented frown. His grip tightened over the shuttle’s control yoke. _And the sooner that freak is off this ship the happier I'll be._

The GC officer came back. " _Nova-Ten, confirm flight directives_."

He sighed and hit the transmission button. "Nova-Ten here, confirming flight directives. Proceeding to follow Interceptor escort."

The ship shook a bit as it was taken off of the automatic piloting program. Ahead of them, the Interceptors began heading into a zigzagging pattern, veering off to the east before swooping northwest to BlueSend. More detours would be necessary before reaching their destination. The erratic flight plan was designed to throw off potential stalkers according to new regulations that had been enacted only within the last month.

Lightning flashed overhead, the electrical discharge making the ship's instruments fuzz over slightly. They reverted to their normal operational status as thunder rumbled through the sky moments later. The pilot scowled deeper as he followed the TIEs deeper into the mountain wilderness.

_All this trouble,_ he thought. _All this ceremony just to ferry one big-headed Imperial freak from space to the ground. If there was ever a better example of Imperial idiocy, it_ _’s this. It’s inefficient, stupid, and overly paranoid._

But after ten minutes of staggered, erratic flying, Nova-10's pilot finally caught a glimpse of the sprawling military complex that was the BlueSend Naval Base and Military Prison: a collection of drab gray buildings clustered around the gentle slope of a hill, like an ancient fortress. The landing pad at the top of the hill beckoned, its glowing landing lights blinking invitingly through the driving rain.

The shuttle finally came down over the horizon, breaking through the fog line with a roar and heading towards the flat gray space of cleared land that was the Delta-20 landing pad. He let out a sigh of relief as the Interceptors peeled off and he eased the shuttle down toward the pad without interference.

"BlueSend GC, this is Nova-Ten," the copilot transmitted, "beginning touchdown sequence."

" _Roger Nova-Ten._ "

The pilot hit two buttons and the flight wings folded back up into the landing position. Once his copilot assured him they were fully locked in place he pushed gently down on the flight yoke. There was a slight jolt as the landing struts hit the durasteel pad beneath.

Silence invaded the cockpit, save for the loud slap of heavy rain against the front viewport. The pilot sat back in his seat as his copilot lowered the exit ramp. He pulled off his cap, wiped his sweaty forehead, and checked the chronometer.

Only half an hour had passed. Only  _half_   _an hour._

He let out another sigh and laughed. "That's it then. We're done."

~~~~~~~~

**BlueSend Naval Base and Military Prison, Javilion Forest, Corulag**

Imperial General Ponsius Luun struggled to keep his cap on his head as the wind tugged it about. He kept his eyes fixed on the sky, watching nervously as the dark shuttle swung in low over the prison with a warbling roar of engine discharge. He didn't move as the ship rumbled over his head. He didn't even blink until the shuttle had safely glided down to the pad and extended its landing ramp.

Coolant steam wafted up from the ground, cloaking the ship’s entrance. Luun found it disconcerting and, quite frankly, terrifying. The theatrics were made even worse by the knowledge of just who was waiting aboard the ship. But he didn't let any of his fear show and instead straightened and waited patiently as the exit ramp lowered in front of him.

The rain slapped loudly against the bleached white armor of the six lines of stormtroopers arrayed behind him, every single one standing at attention despite the dreadful weather. Luun himself was not graced with plastoid armor plating and simply had to endure the rain.

With a hiss of escaping coolant and a few final bursts of steam, the ramp from the triangular landing craft hit the pad's surface with a dull  _thud_ and the entry doors slid open _._  A single wheezing, mechanical breath split the air, audible even over the driving the rain. Lightning flashed across the sky, soon followed by a clap of thunder that seemed to greet the shadow that strode down the ramp. As it moved through the fog, black armor glinted in the glare of the red landing lights of the craft. Luun felt his heart skip a beat at the sight and cringed at the sound of sound of heavy footfalls on the metal ramp.

The general gulped and saluted as Darth Vader strode out from the haze of steam, walking with an assured gait that only the Emperor's right-hand man could pull off. His cape billowed out around his broad shoulders as he walked, his leather-bound hands clenched into tight fists as he surveyed the troops arrayed before him. With a single rasping breath, he continued his march forward.

Luun had never met Vader personally before, but everyone knew the reputation the Dark Lord had earned for himself. Word around the base was that he could snap a man's neck with merely his thoughts. The same rumors claimed that he could hunt down and expose one's deepest, most secret thoughts like a massif hunting for a piece of meat.  _Relentless_ was only one of the words that the soldiers had used to describe Lord Vader.

Luun had dismissed this as simple rumor. But now that Lord Vader was actually here, he was beginning to wish he'd paid better attention.

The Dark Lord nodded silently in greeting and beckoned Luun to follow him. The rain made quiet pattering sounds as it hit his menacing black faceplate and his midnight-black cape flapped wildly as the wind tugged at it. Luun jumped and fell into step next to the Sith Lord.

"Ah, I'd have rolled out the the full red carpet for you, Lord Vader," he said, shouting to be heard over the sound of the rain and thunder, "b-but as you can see-"

Vader dismissively waved a gloved hand in the air and finally spoke in his mechanized baritone boom. "You may skip your pitiable attempts at humor, General. You know as well as I that my presence here is not a publicity stunt."

"O-of course, Lord Vader, but-"

Vader interrupted him again, coming to a halt and studying his surroundings with fists planted on his hips. "You have within this prison more than two hundred suspected insurgents. I am here to see only one. Where is she?"

"Prison wing A-3," Luun replied as lightning cracked overhead. He waited for the ensuing thunder to fade before continuing. "Her execution is in three days."

Vader nodded and set off in that direction at a brisk pace. Luun stumbled after him, putting a hand against his cap again to keep it from blowing away. "I-I see no need to interrogate her, my lord. She is obviously guilty of treason. The evidence gathered against her will attest to that. Why try and get a confession out of her now?"

"Her treachery is not what concerns me. She is not the cause of this growing militia that opposes us, nor does she hold a position of prominence useful to our plans. What I wish to know is exactly who planted the first seeds of rebellious thought within her mind."

"You... suspect Jedi?"

The exact wrong words. Vader rounded on Luun and pointed a finger at his chest. Luun cowered back, shrinking beneath the menacing figure towering over him.

"The Jedi are all but extinct, General Luun,” Vader boomed. “Those rare few who managed to survive the Great Purge are now little more than hermits. Exiles. And I will not allow rumors that they are the cause of this revolt to spread among the ranks. Do I make myself clear?"

"A-absolutely my lord."

Vader nodded, temporarily satisfied, and stared at the prison compound once more. He took a slow, wheezing breath. "And... once I have finished with the prisoner, bring me the pilot and copilot of my shuttle."

"Why?" Luun asked before he could stop himself. He cringed and bowed his head when Vader turned that angular death’s-head helmet back to face him.

"My reasons are not your concern, General. See to it that they are awaiting my return. That is all."

With that, the Dark Lord strode towards the compound. Lightning flashed again, much closer this time, sending blinding highlights across his polished armor. The wind began to pick up and Luun had to put a hand on his head to keep his cap from blowing away.

"My lord!" he called after Vader. "How long will you be speaking with the prisoner?"

"As long as necessary."

The Dark Lord gestured with a single finger and the door slid open. With a swirl of his cape, he turned and disappeared down the brightly lit hall.


	3. The Prisoner

There is a strange excitement to be found in thunderstorms. Anyone who has spent time on an agrarian world, who has seen towering masses of roiling purple-black rain clouds on the horizon, can agree. There is a tension to thunderstorms that is quite unlike any other sensation. And when that tension snaps and the storm breaks, something quite intriguing falls over those caught beneath those clouds.

Every crack of lightning, every deafening clap of thunder serves to excite the senses and send adrenaline-fueled shivers through even the most hardened of beings. Some would argue that many events — space battles, for example — are far more loud, angry, and disruptive. Indeed, one would be hard-pressed to claim that a simple thunderstorm is more exciting than the earth-shattering report of a Star Destroyer’s turbolaser batteries.

But there is something special about thunderstorms. Something thrillingly ancient about the deep rumble of thunder or the swift flash of light across the tumultuous sky. Something that stirs a person’s baser, more primal nature. Something that hearkens back to a time when life was a simple matter of kill or be killed — and where something as simple as a thunderstorm could easily kill.

Corulag was no stranger to thunderstorms. But these primal feelings of excitement evoked by the thunder, the thrill of hearing the heavens roar like a great beast, were lost on the tiny, disheveled woman sitting in her duracrete cell. When the lightning cracked outside, the woman flinched away from it, hugging her knees close to her chest and covering her ears against the mighty roar of thunder that inevitably followed. Every now and then, a whimper could be heard from her cell. Otherwise, she was silent.

Out of the tiny cell window – barred and ray-shielded to prevent her escape, of course – the prisoner saw armored stormtroopers marching back and forth in the courtyard outside, standing guard in even the worst of weather. These men were definitely caught up in the thrill and threat of the storm. They flinched slightly and cursed when a stray lightning bolt hit the ground a few hundred meters from them. A few of the newer recruits abandoned their posts and scrambled for cover — at least until the present officers shouted at them to get back into position. Some rubbed the rain from their contoured helmets or complained about the dismal weather.

Despite their complaints, they were probably better-suited to the weather than the dirty woman in her dirty cell. Their helmet visors darkened to protect their sight from the blinding flashes of lightning, and their audio links dampened the sound of the subsequent roars of thunder.

The woman had never worn the armor herself, but she knew from a few friends that the helmets contained a dizzying array of technology, all intended to give the wearer optimum functionality in any environment. Radio scanners and motion sensors, TeamCOMM readouts and frequency scrubbers, in addition to a myriad of other systems crowded the helmets, all vying for the wearer’s attention.

Her friends had also informed her that, even without all this strange and awe-inspiring technology, it was almost impossible to see anything through the helmet's tinted eye-shaped visors.

The door at the far end of the hall opened with a rusty squeak. The woman didn't bother to look up to greet the newcomer to her cell block. She barely even moved. She just sat with her back pressed up against the wall, alternating between covering her head with her arms, staring out the window, and gazing absently at her shivering filth-streaked hands.

Captain Jay Kolta, now known only as Prisoner 27, winced visibly as the lightning strike lit up her bare cell for what seemed like the thousandth time. She tried to draw further into the corner of the room, away from the noise and the flashes. But her back was pressed tight against the rough and damp surface of the duracrete wall, and she was wedged as far into the corner as she could get.

Thunder split the air again, rumbling through the room so loud she could feel the vibrations in her sternum. She covered her ears until the worst of the noise had faded away, then sighed and let the back of her head hit the hard surface of the wall behind her.

_Fierfek_ , she hated that sound. And this far north, deep in the mountain wilderness of Corulag, there seemed to be rain and thunder all the time.

During the short times she had been taken outside, she had been given a short glimpse of the valley in which the prison was hidden. The sky was foggy and gray, thick with rain, and the tall conifer trees dripped with condensation. Normally it would have been a beautiful sight, maybe even one worthy of a holocard image. But she had been miserable for so long it seemed she would never be able to remember what beauty really was. Everything around her looked dull and sapped of life, like even the world had lost interest in functioning and simply existed for the sake of existing. The TIEs flying overhead were no more frightening than the steady hum of the power cables beneath her cell, and the barking and shouting of stormtroopers was no more interesting than the chattering of birds in the forest.

Everything now had fallen away to a monotonous drum of day-in, day-out melancholy. She ate only when necessary and used the filth-encrusted ‘fresher only when necessary. She stood for inspection, her back to the door and her hands against the wall, when she was told to, just as she filed out for her solitary exercise hour when she was told to. Where once had been a vibrant woman, full of joy and life, there now stood a hollow shell that could barely be called a person. She continued to live only because she could not physically will herself to die.

A stormtrooper walked past her cell, his plastoid armor looking as dull and dirty as she felt. It didn't surprise her. From what she'd been able to gather, this was a very secretive prison where all kinds of horrible things happened. Supplies were therefore scarce and other nearby Imperial outposts, wary of their neighbors regardless of rank or superiority, did their best to further hinder the prison’s secretive work.

_Experimental interrogation_ was what the troopers called it. _Alternative questioning. Aggressive negotiations._ They whispered it in hushed tones whenever one of the black-clad prison workers passed them by. They hissed it to each other as they tried to get a glance inside the highly classified interrogation rooms, when they poked and prodded at unconscious prisoners who had been beaten, drugged, and violated until they could barely move.

The prisoners were not so fascinated with the prison’s secretive proceedings, nor were they so candid with their labeling. Torture was torture no matter what it was called.

Thankfully, Jay hadn’t been taken to the torture wing of the prison. At least not yet. It seemed the Empire simply wanted her dead. She wasn’t even important enough to warrant the drawn-out torture and painful execution on which the local Imperials prided themselves — not that she was complaining.

Her muscles screamed from inactivity and her stomach let out an angry growl every few minutes. The food in the prison was awful, but she had given up trying to go without it after three days of not eating, when she had begun feeling dizzy from hunger. Now she just choked it down and hoped it stayed down.

The red floodlights that illuminated her room flickered in response to yet another nearby bolt of lightning. For a single heart-stopping moment she thought she saw the rippling, light-bending shields that stretched across her cell door flicker as well. But she knew it was just her imagination, knew the shields were just as impenetrable as ever. They remained in place, glowing a dull scarlet and humming quietly.

After the thunderclap faded she leaned against the wall, letting her head thump against the cold duracrete behind her. The rain continued to patter hard against her ray-shielded window, lulling her into a fitful semi-doze. And as always, when her mind began to wander the questions began to return.

How much longer would she be trapped here? How much longer before they just put her out of her misery? And — perhaps most important of all — why was she here in the first place? She felt despair creep into her heart once more at the thought. She didn't have an answer and it seemed that every time she asked the question it gave birth to another. After months in prison, her list of questions had grown quite long.

Why was she – a good-mannered, attractive, and above all _loyal_ Imperial pilot – in a  _cell_ after a nearly perfect four-year service record? Why was she still alive after everything that had happened? And what kind of sick galaxy was this where she lived while all her friends had died horrid, terrified deaths?

The Empire didn't tolerate failure. It wasn’t surprising, and Jay had known that since she before had joined the navy. The rank-and-file soldiers were full of tales about negligent or unskilled troopers who had been imprisoned or executed for their failures. The Empire, she had been told, was tough but fair. But now she knew that same intolerance bordered on outright paranoia. She had been imprisoned here for a crime she hadn't committed! For a crime she would never have  _dreamed_  of committing!

Dereliction of duty. _Treason_. Jay, with her sterling military reputation and her knack for stopping trouble? For "defusing explosive situations" as a general had once commented? She was about as Imperial as someone could  _get_! In fact-

The lightning flashed even closer, hitting somewhere inside the compound this time. The enormous clap of thunder that instantly followed it was loud enough to shake dust loose from the ceiling and leave Jay’s eyes watering. Even the stormtrooper outside her cell covered his helmet's audio receivers.

After her ears had stopped ringing, she heard shouting outside her window. The stormtroopers outside had finally leaped into action, running back and forth and shouting orders to get everyone inside. Most were scrambling for cover, hands over their heads as if under attack. Officers gesticulated wildly and shouted for their troops to head for cover. Two of the Imperials were carrying a smoldering gray mass between them that almost looked like a limp man in twisted, warped armor.

Well what did they think would happen, parading around in a thunderstorm covered in metal armor? She bit back a grin, feeling a small flush of bitter satisfaction at seeing her captors in such disarray.  _Storm_ troopers. Yeah right.

The soldiers quickly fled inside, out of the storm, and her interest in the outside world quickly ebbed. Settling back into her earlier position in the corner, she closed her eyes and lost herself in the sounds of the pattering rain, letting her vivid imagination take her back to happier times.

She knew losing herself in the past was dangerous. But it was the way she passed the days now, thinking back to the days when she'd been accepted and respected. Days when she'd been part of a group that was so close they were almost a family. A slight smile flashed across her lips as her fellow pilot's faces and call signs flitted through her mind.

Kalin was one of the first on her mind. Also known by his handle, _Dewback_ , the daredevil Coruscanti pilot had been the joker of their little group and never ceased to bring a smile to her face. As such, she and the young man had been fast friends almost since her first days in the navy. She could still see his grinning face, his mop of messy black hair, and the pencil-thin glowtorch that he had always spun between his fingers, a habit he'd never tried to break even behind the cockpit.

Turina had always hated her nickname of _Red Dwarf,_ and with good reason. Short of stature and sporting a short tail of blazing red hair, it had had been only minutes before the others had come up with her nickname. Despite her usually surly attitude and combative nature, she had been a talented pilot and a loyal friend. In the cockpit she was fast, silent, and effective during the most pitched battles.

Fillton had been nicknamed _Yessir_ because of his conciliatory nature and his status as a constant suck-up in search of promotion. They had teased him about this, of course, with all the good-natured but undying ferocity of soldiers on tour. Yet the shrewd Yessir had always replied that he would be the one laughing when he was a general and they were all still privates assigned to janitorial duty.

Oppan, simply nicknamed _O_ , had been a bit of a mystery when Jay had first met him. She later found that his monosyllabic nickname had been given to him partially because of the first letter of his name, partially because of his zero social skills outside the group. A dour and silent soldier, he had nevertheless enjoyed being a part of the group and had grown especially close to Red Dwarf in those last months.

And finally there was Sade, call sign _Phantom One_. Jay felt a fresh wave of pain and despair wash over her at the mere thought of her commanding officer. Of all of Phantom Squadron, her small group of TIE fighter pilots, Sade was the one she missed the most of all.

He'd been only a year or so older than her, a tall and strong native of her own homeworld of Corellia. When she’d first met him, she’d had trouble believing he was really a pilot at all. With his strong, handsome face, dark green eyes, and long black hair (certainly longer than military regulations), he’d looked more like a holovid’s depiction of a smuggler or a street-savvy spice dealer. Add that to his easygoing manner and his quick, slightly crooked smile, and his charm was able to win over even the toughest of Imperial commanders.

And then there was Jay. Jay Kolta, a nobody pilot from a nowhere town on Corellia, now rotting in the middle of nowhere on Corulag for a crime she never committed. Strange how fate worked sometimes.

She'd been brought in to serve as Sade's second-in-command after his previous wingman had transferred to the Imperial Marines. It had been hard work, but she’d grown to be one of the most respected pilots in her outfit because of her good luck and her skill in the cockpit. With Sade to guide her, she had helped Phantom Squadron to become one of the most efficient fighter teams in the entire Imperial navy.

During an off-duty party, Yessir, with his flair for the dramatic and helped along by an especially dramatic quantity of intoxicants, had said that because of her skill, their squad had been "reborn from the ashes of our own agonizing, debilitating weakness." He’d promptly fallen out of his chair and passed out, drooling into the pristine Imperial durasteel floor.

But Sade had jumped on the comment and assigned her the call sign of  _Phoenix_ , after the extinct Corellian avian and galaxy-wide symbol of royalty, of power reborn through the heat of battle.

She had gratefully accepted the handle, excited at the prospect of being far more than simply _Phantom Two._ She’d officially been inducted into the group, was now simply one of the many fliers. She wasn’t a rookie any more. She was family.

But all good things, as they say, come to an end.

Three months ago they'd received orders for a new mission. Phantom Squadron, along with several other squads of fighter pilots, were to ship out to the remnants of the Malachor system and destroy a terrorist fleet massing there. The fleet had been responsible for raids along local hyperspace routes, stealing weapons and supplies meant for Imperial outposts on the Outer Rim. The mission brief had stated that there weren't many ships to worry about: three Nebulon-B frigates, a couple Corellian blockade runners, and four squadrons of outdated Z-95 Headhunter fighters.

When they'd arrived, reinforced by the Acclamator Star Destroyer  _Triumph_ , they had gotten to work with their usual precision and skill. It was so easy, it could hardly have been considered a battle at all. Jay and the rest of the TIEs had quickly disabled the three frigates and two blockade runners, leaving them to float powerless through space while the other squadrons took care of the Headhunters. All seemed to be going well.

Then, appearing from the asteroid field that was all that was left of the planet had come sixteen more squadrons of Z-95s, three groups of old V-Wing bombers, and four more frigates, as well as a stolen Acclamator of their own. The Star Destroyer _Triumph_ had quickly succumbed to these new forces, leaving the TIEs stranded without hope for reinforcements. Jay could still see the blinding explosion as the cruiser's engines exploded into a mini-supernova, and could still reember the shock and dread as she realized they were now fighting a suicide mission.

With the Acclamator out of the way, the new ships had quickly turned on the stranded TIE fighters. Transponder signals had flitted out left and right on Jay's readout, until only the most skilled - Phantom Squadron - were left.

Red Dwarf had gone first, caught in the crossfire between Yessir's TIE Interceptor and one of the massive frigates. Emerald green turbolaser fire had clipped her wing and punctured her cockpit viewport, sending her into an uncontrollable spin. Dwarf’s ship had careened wildly through space and detonated into a blue-white ball of light and debris against the hull of the enemy Acclamator. Her comm cut out with one last scream.

The next casualty had been Oppan, distraught by the loss of his best friend. He hadn’t pulled up to avoid incoming fire, and took a proton torpedo right through the front viewport. The grim soldier’s TIE had disappeared silently into the void of space with a flash of red-orange fire.

The rest of Phantom Squadron had quickly followed their fellow pilots, shot down by rockets, laser blasts, or by collisions with enemy ships. Soon, the only TIE pilots left were Sade and Jay. Even as Jay watched horror-stricken, Sade's jet-black Interceptor had taken fire along one wing. The wing was carved away, spinning off into space while his ship careened into an out-of-control spiral. He'd struggled to bring the fighter out of its deadly spin, fighting with the controls as his ship’s ion engines sputtered and threatened to overload.

He'd lasted long enough to give Jay one last order: retreat and request reinforcements to finish the mission they'd been unable to complete.

Then an angular Z-95 had swooped in and Sade's ship had disappeared in a plume of flame, exhaust, and twisted durasteel. Jay’s scream of denial and grief could not be heard outside the confines of her own TIE’s cockpit.

She had desperately screamed into her helmet's comlink, calling for backup, calling for evacuation, searching for anyone still alive. But it only succeeded in drawing enemy attention; three more predatory Headhunters had roared to the scene, combing the wreckage of the battle for any survivors. She had quickly turned and fled, disappearing into the asteroid field that had hidden the rebel reinforcements.

She'd waited there for sixteen hours, her numbed and battle-shocked mind struggling to accept the fact that her only friends in the entire galaxy were dead. After sixteen stunned hours the rebels had left the area and Jay had limped away from the battlefield, flying for almost three days straight to the nearest Imperial space station.

She intended to honor Sade's last order and head the attack on the rebel fleet as soon as she could gather enough ships to launch a successful assault. Those butchers would not get away after what they’d done. Phantom Squadron would be avenged.

But she hadn't had time to request reinforcements. She hadn’t even had time to remove her flight helm. Only moments after she'd clambered down out of the cockpit, she'd been surrounded by stormtroopers with rifles and told that she was under arrest for treason. When she struggled, trying in vain to tell them who she was and why she needed their help, they had shot her with stun rounds and knocked her unconscious.

Within two hours she'd been clapped in stun cuffs and hauled before a military court. Within four hours, she had been dishonorably discharged. Within a day, she’d carted off to BlueSend prison and left to rot.

The swift nature of her conviction was no surprise, considering the evidence that had been mounted against her. She'd been told that she had been identified as a spy, a terrorist sympathizer who had sold the Malachor battle plans to the rebels and was thus responsible for the loss of so many ships. Star Destroyer captains, Marine commanders, and even a Vice Admiral had testified against her, all with evidence suggesting she was a traitor. They twisted her words and used out-of-context statements to paint her as a malcontent, scheming to bring about the Empire’s downfall.

Jay still felt a swell of indignation at the thought. It was  _ridiculous_! Phantom Squadron had been her entire  _life_ , and Sade... she would never  _dream_  of betraying him! He was more than just her CO, more than just a friend. It was an insult to her, an insult to her murdered friends, and an insult to the Empire itself! She was no traitor, and she never would be!

She jerked her eyes open and blinked back a sudden wave of tears. To think that they were all dead now, leaving her alone...

She shook her head and sniffed quietly, wiping her eyes. _No_. She couldn't think about that now. Thoughts like that would kill her in here if she let them.

She stopped mid-thought as the trooper outside her cell put a hand to the side of his helmet and lowered his head, listening to his internal comlink. It was mildly disturbing to see the troopers carry on silent conversations over the private audio links in the helmets, but she knew her guards would tell her what was going on. They always gloated sooner or later.

She watched through cautiously narrowed eyes as the trooper turned to face her.

"Prisoner Twenty-Seven," he said to her, "orders just came through. You're going for a little field trip. You're going to stand against the wall, hands behind your head, while I lower the shield. Any bad moves and I fry you. Got it?"

"Crystal clear, Gorn," she sniffed, wiping her eyes one last time. This particular trooper was especially fond of beating prisoners, and she had the bruises to prove it. Not wanting confrontation, she did as she was told and stood against the wall with her hands held against the back of her head. The durasteel door of her cell made a loud creaking noise as it swung slowly open.

She felt a slight flutter of fear in the pit of her stomach as Gorn slapped stun cuffs around her wrists, pinning her arms behind her back. Her execution was still three days away, wasn't it? Maybe the Imperials had lied to her, trying to lull her into thinking she still had time. Maybe she was going to rejoin Phantom Squad sooner than she thought.

But Gorn shattered that theory when he jabbed a deactivated stun prod into the small of her back and shoved her out of the cell. He held onto her shoulder with a painfully tight grip and guided her down the hall — _away_ from the execution chambers.

"Word around the base is you've got a very special visitor, Twenty-Seven."

Jay grimaced and squirmed against the tight grip on her shoulder. "Who?"

Gorn let out a smug, nasty-sounding chuckle. "You'll know when you see him."

"Then he must be even more hideous than you, Gorn," she replied with a scowl. "Seeing as how your ugly faceplate is the only thing that sticks in my mind when I think _Imperial_."

Gorn had two messy red streaks down the center of his helmet that reminded Jay strongly of smeared blood. Then again, knowing Gorn, he probably liked it that way. He claimed he’d gotten the idea when the last prison he’d guarded had broken out in riots. The riots, according to him, had only been quelled when every prisoner was killed.

He swatted her across the back of the head with the butt of the stun prod and shoved her forward again. She winced, but made an effort to make no sound. With Gorn, it was wise not to show weakness.

"Shut your karking mouth," the trooper snapped. "There's no way you're weaseling your way out of this. Not with your execution in three days."

"It would be a waste of time to try and convince you again that I'm innocent, wouldn't it?"

"Believe it, sweetheart," Gorn growled. "I've heard the same excuse over and over again.  _It wasn't me_ , they say.  _I wasn't even there that night._  It gets more and more pathetic as the years go on."

He yanked on her stun cuffs to make sure they were tight, digging the sharp edges of the restraints into the soft skin of her underarms. "I've heard it all and more. It's gotten so bad that these scumbags start bawling out their sob-stories the moment I walk into their cell."

Jay snorted. "I'm sure they'd say just about anything to get your stinking carcass out of their breathing area."

He yanked warningly on her restraints. “Care to run that by me again, prisoner? Or did your last beating not knock enough sense into you?”

“You can beat me all you want, Gorn,” she spat at him. “I’m still innocent. But if using your fists on cuffed and starving prisoners makes you feel like more of a man, then just get it over with.”

Gorn pulled his fist back for a punch, a snarl coming over his comm set. Jay raised her chin and tightened her jaw, preparing for the inevitable blow that would no doubt knock her off her feet.

Before the blow could fall, someone caught Gorn’s wrist.

"Straighten up, Five-Two," came the accented, gravelly voice of a clone trooper, "or I'll report you to Luun for roughing up the prisoners."

Gorn growled, his white helmet nodding toward Jay. "This big-mouthed scum doesn't deserve any better."

The clone, dressed in the white and brown of the local legion and wearing the red shoulder pad of a captain, grabbed Jay roughly by the shoulder. "That may be. But I think I'll take the prisoner from here. We don't want the General punishing you for bringing our guestbad merchandise."

"Piss off, Tammer," Gorn snapped, waving his stun prod for emphasis. "Everyone knows you've got a soft spot for the inmates. ‘Specially the pretty ones. You clones are too spineless for your own good."

"Is that so? Well in case you hadn't noticed, I'm also a  _captain_ ," Tammer barked, drawing his pistol and tapping the barrel against his red shoulder pad. "And I have no worries about shooting a lowly private like you for insubordination. So you can take that stun prod of yours and shove it up your ass for all I care."

He took a threatening step forward, his voice growling out like the snarl of a predatory vorn tiger. “So that means you will straighten up, mind your _manners_ and return to your bloody post, Five-Two.”

That sure shut Gorn up. The two troopers stood in silence for a few moments, staring each other down with twin glares that could each have frozen Corulag’s sun. But even a barve as awful as Gorn couldn’t stand up under the narrow-eyed glare of a veteran clone trooper.

Gorn stiffly saluted, snapping his fist to his chest, then turned sharply and stalked down the hall in the opposite direction. He waved his stun prod at a few prisoners as he passed and shouted, "What the hell're  _you_  looking at? You want me to come in there?"

As soon as he was out of earshot, Jay sighed in relief and let the tension slowly ease from her body. Her clenched fists relaxed, as did her gritted teeth. "Nice timing as always, Tam."

The clone captain deftly spun his pistol around his trigger finger before holstering it with a flourish. His face was still drawn down in a dark scowl. "Any day I get to crack down on Gorn is a good day in my book. The man's a menace. Come on."

They set off slowly down the hall, looking like any other captain escorting a prisoner to another part of the base. Tammer’s firm hand on her shoulder guided her deeper into the prison, past stormtrooper guards and black-clad technicians. She even saw an officer or two milling about and looking nervous; there must be a dignitary performing an inspection or something.

"Sorry I have to let him beat up on you occasionally.” Tammer’s voice was almost too quiet to hear, but the regret in his tone was unmistakable.

Jay shrugged, wincing as her sore muscles sent another dull ache down her spine. "If you didn't it would be pretty obvious that you were watching out for me. I can’t be the only prisoner who walks around without bruises. I understand, Tam.”

He grunted, but said nothing.

She watched as they passed by another stiff-looking officer who was nervously adjusting the collar of his pressed uniform. Something definitely had the locals riled up. She cocked her head, not able to look over her shoulder at her clone friend. “Just who is this visitor of mine that you guys keep talking about?"

Tammer shrugged. "No clue. Rumors are going around the base of course, but no one's saying anything with certainty. Some Imperial tough guy, maybe. Probably with Intelligence."

"Why are they making such a big deal out of me?” Jay hissed. She felt all the old indignation rising up in her gut once more. “I didn't _do_ anything! Even if I did, it was a routine counterinsurgency operation. There's nothing special there!"

"I still can't give you any answers, Jay," he said. He squeezed her shoulder. "Not yet. All I can say is that I'm still trying – discreetly, mind you – to get your execution delayed again. Former ARC troopers may not have any rights, but I have friends in low places who have friends in high places."

Jay sighed and gave him a slow nod. “I know. And even if we don’t get the delay… I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

"Even if we don't," Tammer echoed darkly, "I have a backup plan."

"What?"

"Just some old friends who happen to be in the neighborhood.” The old clone then fell silent. It was obvious he didn’t want to say any more.

They turned another corner, and Jay suddenly recognized where they were. They were standing at the head of a long corridor framed by tall, whitewashed durasteel doors on either side. Each door was marked with a holographic sign reading AIR-01 to AIR-09.

Jay shuddered in spite of herself. AIR stood for  _Active Interrogation Room_.

This was the part of the prison that the prisoners referred to as the Nightmare Block. Those unfortunate few that had entered these pristine white doors never emerged the same again. She’d been lucky enough to never see this wing of the prison before. It looked like that luck had finally run out.

She could hear no sound from the other sides of the interrogation room doors. That meant they were either empty, soundproofed, or the occupants of the rooms were in no condition to speak. She didn’t know which was more terrifying.

"Tam?"

The old clone tightened his grip on her shoulder. "I'm sorry, Jay, but I have my orders."

The tall door to AIR-03 swung open. Jay tried to back away, feeling a small worm of fear turn in her gut, but Tammer's firm grip kept her moving forward. As they crossed the threshold, he whispered, "Forgive me."

The room behind the door was filled with a white-hot, blinding light that obscured the world and left Jay’s head spinning. She blinked a few times, her eyes struggling to adjust to the sudden change. But she stopped cold when she heard the sound that was coming from the room: harsh, wheezing, mechanical breath that sounded like the breathing of Death itself. That single sound was known across the galaxy, as was the infamous Imperial to whom it belonged.

Tammer, who was not blinded as Jay was, could see her visitor perfectly. She felt him tense up behind her.

"The prisoner, as you requested... my lord," he said, sounding just as shocked as Jay was.

"Very good, Captain," Darth Vader replied in his deep, booming voice. He gestured with a large gloved hand. "You may leave."

"If I may," Tammer said, sounding nervous for the first time since Jay had met him, "I would like to stay to ensure the prisoner's security. After all, a breakout would look terrible on the quarterly reports, and the General-"

"Do you believe me incapable of preventing a single prisoner's escape, Captain?"

Tammer stiffened behind her, his voice tight. "Not at all, sir, but we must follow protocol."

"Protocol does not concern me, Captain.” Vader waved a hand, dismissing the statement. “You may leave.  _Now_."

Tammer knew an order when he heard one. And at his core he was still an Imperial soldier. So he snapped to attention, saluted, then turned and left the room without another word. The door swung shut with a resounding _boom_ behind him.

Jay was left alone with the Dark Lord.

Vader stared at the closed door for a moment, taking in a long, slow breath. It came hissing back out of his mask in a slow, echoing exhale. Then, with a single heavy bootstep, the black-clad colossus turned to Jay. He inclined his helmeted head in greeting.

"Captain Kolta. A pleasure to finally make your acquaintance."

She said nothing.

"You won't need those.” The Dark Lord gestured with a shadowy hand and there was a deep rumble in the air, like distant thunder rolling across the sky. Heavy pressure settled over Jay’s wrists for a moment. Then she felt her electroshock binders click off and fall to the floor with a clatter.

She still didn't speak. She couldn’t speak; her mind was still struggling to catch up to where she was. She was standing alone, weaponless, and completely vulnerable in a small duracrete room with the most feared being in the galaxy save for the Emperor himself.

She could only guess why she was still alive. From what she had heard, Vader had a proclivity for choking people to death without even touching them. He could tear starships from the sky and bat blaster bolts from the air with nothing more than his bare hands.

And now he was here. Staring at her.

Jay glanced down at her now-free wrists, trembling from far more than just the cold air of the interrogation room. She rubbed her palms as she looked up into Vader's infamous death mask of a helmet and tried her best not to flinch.

"A-aren't you afraid I'll attack you? Or try to escape?"

Vader didn’t move. "Captain, if I had any worries about my personal safety or the security of this room, you would have been dead before you passed through the door."

Jay's eyebrows twitched up slightly in surprise. Her voice was a small, choked squeak. "Oh."

Vader gestured to the chair on her side of the table. It slid out and pointed toward her as if manipulated by invisible hands.

"Sit."

Jay found herself – through fear or some subliminal mind trick – unable to resist. She sat in the chair, trembling harshly. She folded her hands in her lap, unconsciously sitting at attention like she would for a superior officer. It didn’t help her trembling. If anything, it only made it all that easier to notice.

Vader leaned forward, towering over her like a monolith of black cloth, leather, and metal. The persistent _wheeze-sigh_ repetition of his breathing made Jay flinch every few seconds and hunch her shoulders as if preparing to take a blow from some unseen assailant. She hoped that Vader couldn't sense just how frightened she was. He might use that to his advantage.

When he spoke, his voice was low and devoid of any emotion. "I assume you understand I am not here to simply visit Death Row inmates.”

"You want to know about the Malachor mission."

"Yes.” Vader finally leaned back, still scrutinizing her with that unseen, masked gaze. “Countless officers have informed me that you are guilty of treason. That you are a spy within the navy, and that you are leaking information to insurgent Imperial subjects."

Jay scowled. "That's what they keep telling me, too."

"Hm." Vader stood to his full height again. "I see that, like myself, you are still convinced of your innocence."

"I keep telling people-" Jay stopped mid-sentence, her mouth falling open in shock. Words failed her for a moment, until she managed to wrench out a strangled, " _What_? You don't think I did it?"

The Dark Lord shook his head. "No. I do not believe you ultimately responsible for the failure of the Malachor counterinsurgency."

Jay's head spun with relief. After all this drama, she was really going to be fine! With a pardon and a recommendation from Lord Vader himself... her execution would be canceled, she would be out of prison, and probably promoted by the end of the week! It was all going to be all right!

"What I wish to know," Vader continued, "is who paid you to deliberately sabotage the mission."

Her small bubble of relief exploded.

" _What_?"

Jay suddenly felt her face slammed hard against the durasteel tabletop. She heard a sharp _crack_ and pain and adrenaline suddenly coursed through her body. She cried out and clapped her hands over her suddenly bloddied nose.

"Do not lie to me, Captain." Vader's voice carried a dangerous tension. He had not moved the entire time.

Jay wiped blood from her nose and tried to look unfazed. To some extent, she was; she was a fighter pilot and she had received far worse wounds in the cockpit of her TIE Interceptor. Still, she hadn’t expect her face to be smashed against the table by someone she didn't know was there.

But there  _was_  no one there, she knew. It was just her and Vader.

There was silence in the room, broken only by Vader' s mechanized breathing. When she said nothing, he tilted his head down to stare at her, the bottomless glare of his death's-head facemask seeming to sink down into her very soul. She squirmed, but found that she could not rise from her chair no matter how hard she struggled.

The rumble had returned, and she knew now it wasn’t thunder.

"I can see every secret within your mind, Captain Kolta. You cannot hide your accomplice from me for long. Your fate will be much more bearable if you only provide me with a _name_."

"I don't know what you're talking about!" Jay cried, feeling blood drip into her cupped hands. "I've never sabotaged any mission, let alone been paid for it!"

She cursed and said, "You don't even have any proof!"

"Proof?" Vader stepped away and clasped his hands behind his back. "The day after your failure at Malachor, one hundred thousand credits were transferred to your private account on Corellia. Coincidence?"

"I-I never got any money!" Her blood ran — if possible — even colder. _That_ was why she was here? Someone had set her up?

"You were likely unaware of the transfer because you were imprisoned the moment you returned to Imperial space, two days later."

He took a single breath. "We  _will_  find your accomplice. But Iam offering you a full pardon if you simply give me a name and location now."

Jay squeezed her eyes shut, feeling almost dizzy with disbelief. "I don't... know... what you're talking about."

A slow _wheeze-sigh_ from Vader’s respirator. "Then you and I are going to be here for a very long time, Captain.”

Jay cried out as invisible fingers gripped the back of her head, tugging hard at her hair, and slammed her face into the durasteel tabletop again. She was held there, ground hard against the surface until blood from her nose smeared her face and the tabletop. Her throat swelled closed, as if gripped by invisible hands. She pawed at her throat, trying to suck in breath, but found that no matter how desperately she tried she could not breathe.

Through it all, Vader only stared at her.

Then, as suddenly as the attack began, she was released again. The pressure vanished from the back of her head and the invisible fingers released her throat. She rocked back in her chair, gasping for breath as tears streamed down her face.

Vader stared down at her for a long time before speaking again. "Now, Captain. Tell me about Malachor."


	4. The Plan

Several hours later, Vader swept out of the room with a loud mechanical wheeze. General Luun jumped forward and fell into step with the Dark Lord. Over his shoulder he saw the prisoner — Twenty-Six if memory served — slumped over the durasteel interrogation table. Blood stained the table and the white duracrete beneath, running in sluggish rivulets down her limp arms. If she was breathing, he could not tell from this distance.

He gulped and hurried after Vader, eager to leave the scene of the Dark Lord’s wrath behind.

"Well?" he asked, struggling to keep up with Vader’s impressive speed. "Did she give up a name?"

"Her resistance to my interrogation is impressive," the Dark Lord boomed. "But she will not hold out much longer. I want her questioned daily by two separate interrogation droids, one every three hours. Use truth serums and physical persuasion as necessary. Her execution will be delayed until further notice."

"B-but my lord," Luun said, "her death has already been delayed several times, and another-"

"It  _will_  be delayed until I give the order for her to die," Vader interrupted forcefully. "Am I understood?"

"Y-yes, my lord," Luun backed down without further comment.

"Good. I am returning to Coruscant tonight on urgent business for the Emperor. I want weekly reports of this prisoner's status. If she divulges the name of her accomplice, I wish to know immediately."

"Of course, Lord Vader."

"Are my pilot and copilot waiting?" Vader boomed as he gestured for the exit door to open. He seemed to pay the torrential rain no attention. The rain lashed against his armor and his cape billowed out around him as he stepped outside, but he strode forward as resolutely as ever. Around him, the storm seemed to only be growing worse.

"They are waiting on the landing pad as we speak, my lord."

"Good.” The black-clad titan set off across the facility at a brisk pace that Luun found difficult to match. A few moments later, they approached the two pilots on the landing pad, waiting obediently as per their orders. The men were protected from the rain by the large mass of the ship behind them and they both shuffled nervously from foot to foot as Vader approached. Luun did not envy them, being in Vader’s direct attention after an obviously frustrating interrogation session.

The Dark Lord stopped in front of them and placed his hands on his hips. "Are you the pilot and copilot of my shuttle?"

The two saluted stiffly. "Yes, my lord," the pilot said. "We took you down this morning."

The Dark Lord looked between the two for a moment, then said, "Then can you explain why you chose to reveal such _rebellious_ thoughts when you clearly knew I was aboard?"

Both men frowned in confusion, the pilot going suddenly pale. "S-sir, I don't know-"

He broke off and coughed, rubbing his throat with a gloved hand. He coughed again as Vader took a single step closer, cape billowing around his armored boots. The Dark Lord leaned forward, towering over him as the man gagged and began to gasp for air.

"I could sense every thought that passed through your mind as you piloted this ship," Vader said, his voice a low grumble. "You cannot hide your contempt for my presence here or your growing dissatisfaction with the Empire's ways. Do you wish to resign? To leave? Perhaps to rebel?"

The man sputtered and frantically shook his head, going slightly purple. His eyes were all but popping out of his head now. As the torture continued, Luun began to hear a strange noise over the sound of the rain. Not thunder... something else.

“I have no need for malcontents and dissidents, captain.” Vader leaned back and shook his helmeted head in disgust. The man fell to the ground with a gurgle, his feet twitching. After a few moments, he fell completely still.

The Sith Lord prodded the body with the tip of his armored boot, then murmured, "Within the Empire, resignation is a  _gift_ , not a privilege."

Vader turned to the copilot and raised a great gloved hand, clenching it into a fist. The man instantly began to wheeze and hold his throat like his companion and again, Luun heard that same low rumble over the air, like the dying roll of distant thunder.

"P-please!" the man cried out. "I... I have a wife! And a _kid_!"

"Then your failure is complete, private. To detest the ways of the government that supports your family... I am truly disappointed."

He made a fist, and the man's neck snapped with a series of wet crunches.

Luun's eyes were wide with shock as he glanced at Vader, to the two dead men in front of him, then back to Vader.

"Is there..." he cleared his throat and tried again. “Is there anything else you wish of me, my lord?"

"No," Vader said, striding past the stormtroopers who had appeared to drag the bodies away. Two more pilots jumped to take their newfound positions as the Dark Lord’s escort. "But I want the name of Kolta's accomplice."

Luun nodded emphatically. "Of course, Lord Vader."

Vader nodded and strode up the ramp, into the ship. “Ensure my orders are obeyed, General Luun. Do not make me return to your prison.”

~~~~~~~~

**Interstellar space, Corulag system**

The clouds obscured the sky above Corulag's forests. If the sky had been clear, the residents would have seen that it was a new moon. That was good; the darkness provided a good cover for incoming starships, provided the engine’s ion emissions were sufficiently dampened. To the unobservant eye, the cobalt-black of the midnight sky would be uninterrupted by any interlopers.

The ship that currently floated between the stars was even darker, little more than a shadow upon a shadow. The only light that came from it was the pulsing blue of its ion drives, currently in standby mode.

Floating before the ship was the great blue-green orb of Corulag. Clouds covered most of the southern hemisphere of the nearest continent, lit intermittently from within by brilliant flashes of light that could be seen even from an interstellar vantage point.

A storm was good too. Electrical emissions from the lightning would wreak havoc with local scanners, making their approach and infiltration that much easier.

Cin Vhetin looked at all this from the cockpit of the ship, the _Void_. He noted how the storm was slowly drifting to the southeast. They had an hour, maybe two tops before it moved on from the region.

Time to get underway. He leaned forward in his seat and flicked a few switches, warming the ship’s shields and engines. A few tapped commands into the keypad at his right engaged the ship’s stealth systems, effectively rendering _Void_ invisible to local Imperial ships.

"Rame," he said, opening a comm channel, "get up to the cockpit. We've arrived."

" _On my way_ ," came the dutiful response.

Cin Vhetin turned his head towards one of the view screens on  _Void_ 's HUD, consulting the information readouts displayed there. The bounty's position was right down there in the middle of that storm. And if the holomap was correct, in a maximum security prison facility, no less.

Even that was good news. Easy jobs bored him.

As far as he could tell, this was about as far from an easy job as a bounty hunter could get. From the preliminary scans of the planet's surface, it looked as if the detention area was situated inside an old pre-Clone Wars era fortress, currently utilized by a military company called BlueSend. The only way in or out was a single entry gate and a single stable landing pad.

But the gate was guarded by eighteen stormtroopers divided into two groups of nine, and the air above the base was covered in every conceivable direction by huge anti-aircraft turrets. Neither would work for an entrance or escape.

What he needed was a distraction. A rather _large_ distraction if he could find one. Large enough that it would divert all attention to it and away from him…

He didn’t have time to formulate a plan now. They needed to get underway so the storm could cloak their entry burn. After that, he could return to thinking about the plan.

With a few quick flips of switches, he powered up  _Void_ 's sublight drives and the ship sped towards the planet's surface. The deck jolted beneath his feet as the ship shot off through space.

There was a loud mechanical click and a hiss of depressurizing air as the door behind him slid open. A tall armored man, dressed in polished silver-red armor, slid into the copilot's seat a moment later.

"How're we doing?" he asked, setting his helmet on the floor next to his seat.

"We should arrive within an hour or so," Vhetin said. "I have to take it a little slower than usual to avoid a hot entry burn."

"Take your time," Rame said, putting his hands behind his head. "Our little jewel isn't exactly going anywhere."

Vhetin stared calmly out of the view port as he guided the ship down towards Corulag. The space outside the cockpit began to glow red-hot as they burrowed deeper into the planet's atmosphere, the deck jumping and rocking beneath their feet as turbulence buffeted the ship. After a short time Rame sat forward and looked through the computer screen, checking for any incoming enemies.

"I looked a few seconds ago," Vhetin told him. "No one in sight."

"Not yet, anyway. But I'd be willing to bet you a gallon of  _gal_  that we're going to meet heavy resistance before this mission's through."

"What makes you think that? This base is supposed to be classified. A large military presence would only draw attention."

The silver-red man, Rame, gestured to the planet below them. "Just look at the place, Vhetin. It's  _Corulag_  we're talking about. Of all the planets in the Empire, it's the number one model for  _Imperial order_. Do you really think we're going to get any help from anyone down there?"

"If everything goes according to plan, we won't need help."

Rame cocked his head, and rolled his eyes in mock irritation. "And here I was thinking I taught you to be smart."

"You did," Vhetin said, pulling his helmet over his head. "But there seems to be a difference between Mandalorian intelligence and everyone else's intelligence, wouldn't you say?"

Rame grinned and replied, "You've got that right."

~~~~~~~~

**Corulag, Javilion Forest**

The next day dawned dreary and damp. Thankfully, the moist air and thick cloud cover of the day before had shielded the view of  _Void_ 's entry burn, allowing them to slip unnoticed into the lower atmosphere. The ship was now far from the TIE fighter sentries and safely hidden in the back forest several miles from the complex.

The stormtroopers outside the fortress were currently having a hard time walking in the mud, and were complaining about the lack of real roads this far into the mountains. Their complaints fell on mostly deaf ears, but Rame was listening intently.

_Boots sticking in the mud,_ the quiet, analytical part of his mind whispered.  _That'll decrease their mobility. Make them easier to pick off._

But it would also decrease Vhetin's mobility, as he would be the one infiltrating the outpost. A fully-armored Mandalorian was almost twice as heavy as a stormtrooper, so Vhetin would be even slower. That made the mud a double-edged sword, and a potential problem they'd need to keep an eye on.

Fully dressed in his  _beskar_ combat armor, Rame was currently situated on the sturdy branch of one of the forest's massive trees. The forest only thirty feet beyond had been leveled, cleared away long ago when the base was still being built. It was supposed to give the base a "kill zone" for any escaping prisoners; even if someone miraculously made it out, there would be no cover outside the walls. Manned turrets on the walls or the stormtrooper guard could then mow down the escapee with ease. Rame could already see more than one muddy skeleton sprawled across the ground below.

He hunched lower and increased magnification on his helmet's HUD with the blink of an eye, studying the outpost for weaknesses.

BlueSend prison complex was a collection of drab, slate-gray buildings with little or no windows, spread out across a small hill. The entire complex stretched out in a rough circle with maybe a half-mile radius. He could easily pick out the mess hall, the command center, the comm relay, and the shipyards that housed the local garrison of TIE fighters. All were fairly spread out so that a single missile strike wouldn't take out all the important parts of the facility. Smart.

It was big as prison facilities went, and Rame was certain there weren't holding cells in  _all_  those buildings. This had been cause for some initial concern, but some subtle HoloNet investigation had quickly provided the answer: BlueSend was a large but narrowly focused army company giving funding to military prisons and correctional facilities. A cursory examination of the outpost's quarterly reports shed further light on the inner workings of the prison, suggesting that it was also a hotspot for experimental interrogation. They billed the Empire for all kinds of related equipment, including electro-shock binders, hallucinogens for IV injections, and lots and lots of truth serum.

The base was using its prisoners as lab rats for experimental torture techniques. Rame couldn't help but admire the cunning plan, even if he was simultaneously disgusted by it. No one really cared about the rights of convicted criminals these days, and if all went as the Imperials wanted it no one would even know any of them were here.

The most important structure, the landing pad, was situated at the highest point of the hill. The rest of the buildings were roughly clustered around it, like ancient villages arrayed around a temple. Obviously BlueSend Naval Base was highly dependent on outside support, despite its top-secret classification. If he had to bring  _Void_ in to pick Vhetin up, that was where he'd have to go.

But it wasn't going to be easy. The landing pad was covered from all conceivable directions by five computer-guided turbolaser turrets, built into boxy towers along the perimeter wall. They tracked back and forth even now, scanning the skies for potential threats. More than one shot from those babies could blast a transport like  _Void_ to bits. But...

He zoomed in closer on the troopers who were standing a good distance from the entrance. Stupidly, they were gathered around a fuel pod, warming themselves from the heat the pod gave off as it supplied power to one of the turbolaser towers above them.

It was a weakness he could very easily exploit. A single well-placed sniper bolt would blow the pod, take out the troopers near it, and provide a big enough distraction for Vhetin to cut his way through the thick boundary wall further down the barrier without interference.

He was almost pleased for once at Imperial stupidity. They had single-handedly provided him with an entrance plan. Now what about a way out? When the Imperials noticed Vhetin’s presence, they would undoubtedly lock down the gate and guard any forced entry points.

He frowned inside his helmet, keeping a close eye on the movements of the troopers.

Flying  _Void_  into the facility was out of the question. She would be shot down before she made it past the northern perimeter. And Vhetin couldn’t carry his own weight and that of the bounty on his jetpack alone, even with his fancy new FLT-23 model. So what to do?

He examined the edge of the walls. The rest of the fuel pods were too far out of range to take out with the sniper rifle.

_But_ , he suddenly thought _, those are just the fuel pods. There's got to be an intake station somewhere in the base that supplies coolant fluid to all the operational turrets. Otherwise they_ _’d overheat and explode._

He followed the large fuel pipes running from the closest turret. They twisted behind buildings, around stationary spotlights, and through the legs of guard towers. They even dipped underground in one place.

He paused and zoomed in even further on the place where they disappeared under the ground. It looked like it was part of the well-guarded command center.

If the coolant intake station was under that building, Vhetin could fight his way in, take out the station, and overload the turrets. The turrets would go _pop_ (probably a much bigger sound, but _pop_ was all he could think of) and instantly shut down. Rame could can fly  _Void_  into the facility to pick up Vheitn and the bounty, then blast away from Corulag free as a bird.

He nodded and drew back on the trunk, out of sight of any watchful Imperials. It wasn't the best plan, and he didn't enjoy making things up on the fly, but it was very possible. He just hoped Cin would be able to pull it off.

~~~~~~~~

Ten minutes later, Vhetin waited as _Void_ _’s_ exit ramp lowered with a whine of hydraulics. It made a wet slapping sound as it hit the muddy ground, sinking a few inches into the damp forest floor. He strode down the ramp, pulling on one of his heavy-duty  _beskar_ gauntlets.

" _I hope this doesn't turn into a chase_ ," Rame muttered over his internal helmet comlink.

"Why?" Vhetin asked. He pulled his helmet over his head and gave his HUD a moment to boot up.

There was a silent flash of amber light, then his HUD began displaying information about the forest: the movement of the trees as they swayed in the chilly breeze, the amounts of trace gasses in the atmosphere, the distant roar of TIE fighters, even the view of the area directly behind him. He was now completely in tune with the world around him. Nothing could hide from him.

" _The ground's moist_ ," Rame replied. " _It'll slow you down_. _And if you run across troopers on speeders, there'll be no chance in hell you can outrun them_."

Vhetin shrugged. "Let's play it by ear for a bit. If I can take out the turrets guarding the base like you said, it won't even be a problem. You can just pick us up in  _Void_."

Rame grunted. " _I hope your bounty is worth all the trouble we're about to cause._ "

“The money’s good. And pulling this guy out from under the Empire’s nose will make a lot of people happy.” He and set off into the forest at a jog. "Are you set up?"

" _Yeah. I'm just waiting for you to move your bulk to the forest edge. And do make sure you get out of there in one piece. I'd hate to have to tell Brianna you're dead. She'd probably shoot me._ "

"Just be ready," he said, and disappeared into the forest.


	5. The Ambush

The sun was setting after an agonizingly tense day, and the storms were moving in once more. Stormtrooper PA-979 looked up at the dark sky, at the clouds lit intermittently by distant flashes of white-hot lightning. He checked his rifle's power cartridge and sat down on a crate next to the main gate, listening to the distant rumble of thunder.

Kark it, the outpost was tense. All he'd done all day was walk from one end of the wall to the other, yet he was still exhausted. Three different officers had shouted at him over the course of the day for next to no reason. One of the commanders had even given him a reprimand for not standing straight enough while patrolling. Everyone was on edge and would continue to be so for some time, even though Vader had left earlier that day.

_Just two more months and my rotation's up_ , he thought.  _Then it's back to civilian law enforcement patrol on Triple Zero. Vader won't be popping in on me there._

PA-979 shuddered at the mere thought of the black-helmeted nightmare who'd stalked the halls of the prison earlier in the day. 979 found himself thanking the stars once again that the inspection had passed without him even so much as glimpsing the black-clad enforcer the Emperor so favored.

He knew there were some in the military who idolized — hell, who almost _worshiped_ — the Dark Lord. To them, he was a symbol of everything it meant to be an Imperial. He was powerful and intelligent and let no one stand in the way of his goals. He enforced Imperial rule wherever he went and punished those who refused to bow to the will of the Emperor. His angular death’s-head mask was plastered across HoloNet reports and propaganda posters, adorning massive holoboards on Coruscant and even graffiti in the undercity.

Trooper PA-979 was not so enamored of Lord Vader. In his opinion, the man was a menace to everything that moved. A leader was supposed to inspire confidence in his underlings. He was supposed to lead by example, not with an iron fist. A leader was like 979’s old boot camp sergeant: tough on the outside, but genuinely concerned for his fellows beneath, considerate of those under his command but also unwilling to let that consideration stagnate into apathy or coddling. 979’s sergeant had been a good man who took no nonsense from his troops, but also wanted everyone to come back from the battlefield in one piece.

Vader was not so concerned about those he commanded. His view was bigger, higher, than the well being of the everyday soldiers who cowered in his shadow. He saw people only as tools, to be used and expended as he saw fit. And when they outlived their usefulness, he discarded and replaced them in the same casual way PA-979 discarded and replaced a spent cartridge of gas for his blaster.

And the way he'd snapped those two pilot's necks? Captain Kol had been a good guy, no threat to anyone. And Vader had stalked in and executed him just for the hell of it. Rumor around the base was that Kol had been dissatisfied with the latest round of Imperial policies and edicts and that he was looking to retire from the military for good. Maybe settle down with his wife on one of the Outer Rim colonies, far from the affairs of Darth Vader and his ilk.

Vader, apparently, had found such a notion offensive.

So, without a conviction, a trial, or even an accusation of any wrongdoing, he had killed Kol and his copilot on the spot and continued on his way. That wasn't leadership. That was  _insanity_.

" _Psst_."

There was a hiss of static over his comlink. PA-979 scowled and tapped a finger against the unit, sheathed under the armor covering his right ear. The stupid comms were always malfunctioning here; a side effect of the nearly constant lightning storms. A few troopers around the base had even gone partially deaf due to the random blasts of sound that sporadically exploded over their headsets.

But this was different. It wasn’t just a random burst of white noise. After a moment the static came back, stronger and clearer than ever. What was it?

_"Psst._ "

It wasn't static. It was a voice streaming in over his comlink.

" _Psst_ ," the voice whispered. " _Hey, you there. Shiny-boy by the gate._ "

He grabbed his rifle and looked around in alarm, snapping the weapon against his shoulder with a sharp _clack_ of metal against plastoid armor. "What? Who's there? Show yourself!"

" _Shiny-boy—_ "

"Show yourself!" 979 snapped, checking the charge on his rifle.

" _Shiny-boy, I'd shut up and cover my ears if I were you._ "

"Wha-"

His voice was cut off by a deafening explosion nearby, followed by loud screams of pain that ripped over his internal headset. Flames erupted hundreds of feet into the air further down the wall, propelling a wave of dirt, stone, and debris that peppered the ground around him.

979 shouted a curse and covered his head as the explosion faded away, hopping to cover as wreckage rained from the sky all around him. Further down the wall, YI-354 and two other privates barreled through the gate with rifles in hand. 354 stared around, then called over to 979.

"What the hell was that? Prisoner revolt?"

979 slowly inched out from cover, weapon still raised. “I don’t think so. Whatever it was, it came from outside the base.” He cast a nervous glance towards the trees. Whatever that explosion was, the voice that had spoken to him earlier was behind it somehow. "Do you think we should check it out?"

YI-354 shook his head. "Negative. I'll stay here and guard the gate. You go see what happened."

979 scowled, but nodded and quickly set off. YI-354 might have outranked him, but that didn’t mean he had to be happy about it. _Of course_ you  _get to stay and guard the gate._

He set off at a slow jog towards the source of the explosion. It didn’t take long to find the source of the explosion at the base of one of the anti-aircraft defense turrets. The huge turret was leaning dangerously to one side, creaking and moaning with the tortured sound of twisting metal. Smoke was billowing from its multiple barrels, though blinking green lights on its housing showed that the laser was still functional – barely. He saw the rest of his platoon, all dead or severely wounded, scattered around a smoking crater that had once been a heated fuel pod. White-clad bodies lay strewn across the ground.

That voice. Whoever had spoken to him before had done this. 979 spun to the forest and shouted, "What the hell are you?"

The forest remained silent, the trees dark and forbidding as always.

"You killed them all! Show yourself!”

But the voice didn't come back. There was nothing over his comlink but silence.

When there was no answer, he clicked off his rifle's safety and let a barrage of blaster bolts scream into the forest. He kept shooting until the weapon clicked empty.

The forest was still silent, nothing moving but the slight waving of the leaves.

“What are you?!” he shouted again.

Finally there was a burst of static, and the voice returned.

“ _I_ _’m the distraction.”_

A shadow darted from the trees, keeping low to the ground and heading straight for him. 979 fumbled with a fresh clip of tibanna gas, ejecting his spent magazine onto the ground. He backpedaled as the dark figure drew closer, and he slammed the magazine into the housing and raised the rifle just as the shadowy attacker drew within arm’s reach. But before he could squeeze off a shot, a hand grabbed him by the arm and twisted him around. A second later, a fountain of deep blue light erupted out of his chest plate with a snapping sputter and a hiss of sparks.

Time stopped. The world was suddenly silent, save for the the hum of the blue energy blade and the quiet sizzle as it burned and cauterized his flesh. He coughed and dropped his gun, fingers going limp and knees buckling dangerously. The heavy weapon fell to the ground next to him with a clatter that seemed to echo as if from the end of a long tunnel.

His attacker withdrew the blade and tossed him aside. He fell to the ground with a crash of armor plates and tried weakly to crawl away. His legs twitched and he coughed, smoke wafting lazily from his chest wound. He watched through streaming eyes as a man in black battle armor knelt over him.

_Vader?_  His head was spinning in pain and confusion. As the man came nearer, however, he realized his mistake.

_A Mandalorian? A kriffing_ Mandalorian?

The man stared at him through his own cruel-looking battle helmet and tipped his head to one side slightly.

"I'm sorry," the man said quietly. He raised his lightsaber, which hummed malevolently in his grip. "But you aren't going to ruin my only entrance point by raising the alarm."

There was a quick flash of pain, then trooper PA-979 fell into nothingness.


	6. The Assault

" _What was all that about?"_

Vhetin shrugged as he ignited his second lightsaber and began cutting through the last of the two-foot-thick duracrete wall that the fuel pod had failed to carve away. "Your _shiny-boy_ wasn't evil. He was just doing his job."

" _Nice to know I taught you some semblance of ethics after all_ ," Rame said, still providing sniper cover in the trees. " _There may be hope for you yet._ "

"The ethical thing to do would have been to not stab him at all," Vhetin pointed out. “I may have made it relatively quick and painless, but the man’s still dead.”

" _You have a point, I guess._ "

The last chunks of duracrete melted away, offering him unimpeded access into the complex beyond. He looked over his shoulder into the trees one last time. "You have me covered?"

" _No one's going to touch you_ ," Rame said. " _At least not till you get inside the command center. Then you're on your own._ "

Vhetin nodded and ducked through the melted aperture, emerging inside the compound. It wouldn’t be long before more stormtroopers came to investigate the source of the explosion, so he needed to move fast. Rame's end of the comlink closed and Vhetin set off at a run for the command center. He shad to take out the coolant intake system first so he could exfiltrate when he needed to. Then and only then could he focus on the bounty.

A nearby stormtrooper noticed him and started, surprised at the sudden intrusion into the secure compound. He wasted no time jumping into the Mandalorian’s path, leveling his rifle and barking, "Freeze!"

Vhetin just lowered his head and grabbed the trooper around the waist, tackling him  _meshgeroya-_ style. The trooper grunted and they both fell to the ground. The trooper's sergeant glanced over and did a strange little stutter-step in surprise. Then he pulled out a pistol and discharged it into the air three times. Troopers all over the camp glanced toward the source of the sound.

“Intruder!” shouted the trooper pinned under the bulk of Vhetin’s armor. “Intrud—”

Vhetin grabbed the sides of the trooper's helmet and twisted, snapping his neck quickly and cleanly. The man went limp with a choked gurgle. The stormtrooper sergeant, his armor decorated with splashes of blue to indicate his rank — took a step forward as Vhetin stood, raising his rifle. He didn’t make it far. Before the Imperial could pull the firing stud of his weapon, he was blasted sideways off his feet by a high-powered sniper shot from the distant tree line; a last-minute rescue courtesy of Rame.

Every trooper present froze, staring at the downed sergeant with shock and disbelief. Then, as one, they broke and ran in all directions. The compound devolved into chaos: troopers ran in every direction, firing blindly into the trees. Officers shouted orders or gestured frantically to set up a position on the barrier wall. A few TIE fighters streaked overhead, roaring off toward the forest in search of their mysterious attacker.

" _Sniper in the trees_!" A voice blared over the intercom speaker, making troopers around him scramble for cover. " _Sniper in the trees_!"

"Thanks for that," Vhetin grunted as he set off at a jog toward the command center again. “The Imps have all but forgotten me.”

" _No problem_ ," Rame replied, then began picking off stormtroopers at random as they scrambled for cover. " _Just keep your head down,_ ner vod. _I won_ _’t be able to save your neck forever._ "

Vhetin nodded and broke into a run again.

Blaster bolts began flying into the trees in random directions, troopers screaming orders to concentrate on particular targets at the forest edge – all plastoid decoys set up by Vhetin and Rame during the night. Vhetin cracked the slightest smile at the realization that those troopers would hit the orbiting Star Destroyer before they hit Rame.

As Vhetin ran past, two troopers jumped out from their cover behind a stack of durasteel water barrels to chase after him. But they quickly scrambled back when Rame stitched the ground at their feet with blaster bolts. Vhetin ignored them and kept running.

With a deafening scream of ion engines, three TIE fighters lifted off from a nearby docking pad, no doubt going to call for help at the nearest outpost and bring back more air support. That was a serious problem, but a problem easily solved.

Vhetin halted, spread his feet, and leveled his right arm at the closest fighter. He locked his elbow, then clenched his fist and fired a small anti-personnel rocket from his armored gauntlet. The force of the rocket firing away into the air drove him back a few steps.

The tiny missile flew towards the nearest TIE, trailing a two-foot tail of flame, and breached the front transparisteel viewport. A moment later, the ship exploded in a shower of fire and shrapnel. One of the other ships was caught in an electromagnetic shockwave as the ion drive of the first ship detonated. The powerless fighter nose-dived into a nearby bunker, taking it out before the troopers within could run for new cover.

"Rame," he said over the comm, "I need that other TIE taken out."

" _Done._ "

A high power blaster bolt flew from the trees and hit the weakest spot on the fighter: the small support strut anchoring one huge wing panel to the smaller pod-like cockpit. The hexagonal wing flew off the rest of the ship, and the ship spun wildly before crashing into a huge tree to the west. Fire bloomed high into the sky as a wafting orange-white ball enveloped the damaged fighter.

"Nice shot," Vhetin said as he set off again.

" _I was actually trying to hit the main viewport_ ," Rame replied. " _But you_ _’re welcome regardless._ "

Vhetin stopped for a moment to take in his surroundings; fire was literally raining from the sky thanks to the wreckage of the TIE fighters, troopers were running for their lives — some screaming, others just wordlessly dashing for cover —  and that annoying intercom voice was still screaming, " _Sniper in the trees! Sniper in the trees!_ "

_I need to get to the command center,_ Vhetin thought,  _and take out that coolant system_. _All this chaos is only going to get worse._

The command center wasn't hard to find. It was a low, rectangular building adorned with black flags bearing the Imperial Wheel and decorated with intricately carved black-and-white mosaics on the outside walls – probably courtesy of the local artisans 'free of charge.' Vhetin dashed towards the building.

He stopped short as a stormtrooper barreled into him, tackling him from the side. They crashed to the ground in a tangle of limbs and armor plates. Vhetin grunted, then pushed himself backwards into a reverse somersault and ignited a single blue-bladed lightsaber as he came to his feet. The trooper pulled off a few poorly aimed blaster shots as he staggered wildly back to his feet. Vhetin easily dodged them and slashed, neatly decapitating the trooper with a single swipe of his lightsaber.

" _Jangoed with style_ ," Rame observed from his sniper post.

"Shut up," Vhetin panted, heart pounding as the troopers now headless body slumped limply to the ground. He deactivated his saber, clipped it to his belt, and continued his sprint for the command building. He couldn’t afford to be distracted like that again. Any more, and he risked taking too long and allowing the bounty to escape.

He didn't see any defensive turrets or any particular kind of security measures set up around the command building, but he couldn't be too careful. This was a prison, after all, and one that prided itself on keeping riled-up prisoners in line.

He flanked the entrance door, pulled his rifle from its sling over his shoulder, and took a deep breath. _Every time I do this,_ he thought,  _these few seconds before I go in could be my last._

He closed his eyes, took another deep and calming breath, then slapped a breach charge on the center of the door and took cover around the corner. He counted off three seconds and braced himself, tucking his head down and close to his chest to protect from the inevitable blast.

The door charge blew, tearing the heavy durasteel doors apart with a roar and a dark cloud of shrapnel. The doors twisted and warped under the heat and force of the explosion, bending inward with a tortured groan that was not quite overpowered by the near-deafening detonation of the breach charge.

Without hesitation he threw himself through the entrance and squeezed off six shots. Seven bodies fell to the ground.

Vhetin frowned and stared at his rifle.  _What?_

" _You missed one_ ," Rame said.

"Oh," Vhetin said. That explained the extra body. "Thanks."

" _Well? Is he there?_ "

"The bounty?"

He heard Rame sigh over the comlink. " _Stay focused Vhetin. Try to think of more than one objective at a time. Yes, the bounty. Is he there?_ "

“No. I'll keep my eyes peeled while I look for the coolant system."

" _Okay. Schematics show that it should be in the basement. Sub-level B._ "

Vhetin kicked down doors, incapacitated troopers who jumped towards him, passed by cowering prison officials without harming them. They weren't his problem. So long as they stayed down and didn’t try to attack him, he could pass by without issue.

Further inside the maze-like command center he found a tall door, easily blown inward with another breach charge. Beyond the door, he found a long, twisting stairway made of rough duracrete and stone, leading down into darkness. It was certainly not like the rest of the building, with its spotless durasteel floors and walls draped with flags sporting the Imperial Wheel.

He craned his neck, leaning over the railing to stare down. The stairway led down at least four stories, maybe more. "Sub-level B you said?"

" _Yeah. B as in bottom._ "

He sighed at the news. Taking the stairs would waste precious time and energy he could not afford to lose right now. That meant there was only one option, and one that he didn’t particularly enjoy. He gritted his teeth and rested his hands on the safety rail overlooking the drop.

"I kriffing hate doing this."

Then he hauled himself up and leaped over the railing, out into open air. He felt a split-second of dizzying weightlessness before gravity tugged at his heavy armor and he shot down through the dark air. His  _kama_ billowed out around him as he plummeted down the central space, falling several stories in a span of seconds. He saw platforms and floor numbers fly past, and his HUD was blaring an alarm in his ear. Large red letters flashed across his helmet’s heads-up display: COLLISION ALARM, FIRE EMERGENCY THRUSTER SYSTEM _._

Vhetin waited two moments more before he triggered his jetpack. He felt a concussive jolt from between his shoulder blades, then a wash of white-hot flame erupted from the pack’s thrust tubes, slowing his descent. He could see the exhaust of his pack wash against the hard floor, flowing out across the ground like a wave of roaring orange-white water.

A second later he landed neatly on the bottom floor, driven to his knees from the force of his landing but otherwise unharmed by the fall. His jetpack sputtered and died after spitting a last spray of sparks, leaving him in almost total darkness.

Vhetin took a moment to recover, sucking in a deep breath to calm his racing heart. After a few moments, he set off down the dark hall before someone came to investigate the cacophonous roar of his jet pack. The hall was unusually large and the ceiling stretched high overhead, barely visible in the dim glow of the illuminator panels set into the walls. He had to set his helmet’s HUD to low-light mode to cut through the gloom. The night vision setting revealed thick duracrete pillars and support struts surrounding him, as well as various safety hazard signs telling him he could not be present in this area without Level Three clearance. He doubted security clearance mattered much now.

The air was thick with a heavy metallic thrum, so loud that it made the very air vibrate. His helmet's audio dampers quieted the sound to protect his hearing, but the powerful computer systems built into his helmet couldn’t pinpoint the source or cause of the vibrations. He put a hand against the duracrete wall and felt it quivering with a rhythmic pulse, like a tremendous heartbeat.

This was definitely near the coolant intake system. A cursory look up revealed huge pipes stretching over his head, through which slogged copious amounts of coolant fluid bound for the turret defense system.

Those pipes were his ticket to finding the intake system. Wary of armed stormtroopers, he followed the thick pipes down the hall. They twisted and turned through the underground structure, leading him deeper and deeper into the cavernous underground facility. He occasionally had to pause and deal with armed guards who took potshots at him as he rounded corners, but they were little more than an inconvenience. He left them either dead or incapacitated as he moved on.

The pipes finally led him to a huge reinforced door that looked like it could take a direct hit from a rocket launcher and still remain intact. Warning signs and holograms stated that the area beyond was off limits to all Imperial personnel but a select few technicians. Trespassing was apparently punishable by death.

This was very obviously the place. Any other day, he’d just cut through the door and be done with it. But doing so would probably send up alarms all across the prison. He needed to maintain his anonymity here, at least for the time being. That required a more subtle approach.

He triggered his helmet comlink as he inspected the control panel next to the massive door. "Rame, if you can hear me, I'm at the coolant intake system door. I need you to slice into the security system and tell me how to get this thing open."

The transmission that came back was garbled and full of static; he was too deep underground to get a clear comm channel.

" _-arely getting you... -ut I'll...-o my best._ _”_

Vhetin nodded and waited by the door as his friend hacked into the local Imperial systems.

" _-kay_ ," the man came back. " _-hat you need to do... -open the door panel... -ull out the... -reen and red w... -epeat, green and red wires... -onnect them and it'll...-hort the door open._ "

"Okay," Vhetin said, getting the gist of what Rame had said. He needed to connect the green and red wires to short the door open. Doing so would mimic a typical entrance and avoid setting off any security alarms.

It didn’t take long to do as Rame had suggested. The butt of Vhetin’s rifle cracked open the door's control casing to reveal a multitude of wires tangled up within, all of various colors. When he severed the green and red conduits and re-wired them together, there was a bright _pop_ of sparks and a loud rumble from within the wall, and the huge doors began to move. Vhetin stepped around the corner and waited for the entryway to open, wary of attack from within. As soon as he could, he slipped through the door.

He froze when he saw what was on the other side.

The coolant intake system was there, all right; a tangled mess of pipes and collector tubs of bluish fluid that fed up into the turrets. It was a great mess of machinery and piping that thrummed and groaned loud enough to shake the duracrete floor beneath his feet. It was very literally the heart of the entire prison security system.

But guarding it were no less than twenty white-clad stormtroopers, all hefting various rifles, pistols, and other weaponry. And towering over it all was a single armored Imperial scout walker, striding about on its reverse-jointed legs with a mechanical whir. Vhetin froze, momentarily stunned at the level of security the device boasted. As he watched, dumbfounded, the troopers leveled their rifles and the AT-ST swiveled its cannons to face him.

Only one trooper had to speak.

“ _Blast him!_ ”

"Oh, sh-"

Vhetin instinctively blasted upward on his jet pack and the hail of incoming blaster bolts missed him entirely. He leveled out, floating almost ten feet above the ground, and fired a wrist rocket into the bulk of the troopers swiveling to aim at him. The rocket pinged against the duracrete floor, then detonated in a blinding wash of fire. The blast sent half the troopers flying deep into nearby coolant tubs, where the corrosive liquid instantly began to eat away at their armor. A few moments later he heard screams as it began its work on their flesh.

It was a decisive first blow. But there were still ten troopers left  _and_ a kriffing AT-ST doing their best to shoot him out of the air. Vhetin quickly cut power to his pack and landed hard on the ground, somersaulting and igniting both his lightsabers on his way back up. The troopers opened fire, filling the air with humming scarlet blaster bolts. He caught four bolts in the chest plate, the jarring concussions knocking the breath from his lungs. But he kept moving toward them, holding his lightsabers in front of him in a vain effort to reflect the incoming fire like a Jedi of old.

He jumped into the air as soon as he was close enough, using his jetpack to help him into a rocket-assisted front flip. The jump carried him into the middle of the troopers just as they were cycling up their rifles to fire. He tucked himself into a tight offensive spin, taking a nearby Imperial's legs off at the knee. The trooper fell onto the stumps of his limbs, screaming before Vhetin kicked him hard in the faceplate and knocked him unconscious. He used the kick as momentum for another spin, throwing his foot out at another trooper and hitting him in the armored stomach.

He jumped back as a blaster bolt hit near his feet. He swiveled to the trooper who had shot, cut his gun in half, then drove both his sabers into the man's chest till the hilts touched that pristine white chest plate. The trooper hit the ground with a gurgle as Vhetin spun and decapitated another.

Three down. Seven more to go.

The view from his HUD systems was not good. The trooper he'd kicked in the stomach was getting his breath back and quickly preparing to charge him, while the others finally overcame their shock and opened fire at him. Ducking to avoid the incoming blaster bolts, Vhetin leveled his left arm and shot out a length of whipcord, tangling the man's legs and sending him crashing to the ground. He pivoted his shoulder and fired a miniscule dart into unarmored neck of another trooper. The man clapped his hand to his neck and fell, sputtering and twitching as the venom within the dart quickly took hold of his nervous system.

He was fast — faster than the troopers at least — and doing a good job of holding his own. But his luck was quickly running out. They were penning him in, surrounding him in a cage of blaster fire. He wouldn’t hold up much longer fighting like this.

He heard a metallic groan behind him and glanced at his HUD’s 360-degree vision window. The AT-ST was lifting its large circular foot, ready to crush him. Barely thinking, he threw himself back just in time to narrowly avoid being pulverized. The walker instead crushed the two troopers Vhetin had incapacitated.

Vhetin didn’t have time to hesitate at the sudden unintentional deaths. He triggered his jetpack and shot up into the air, taking three more shots to the chest and stomach as he went. He drew as close as possible to the Imperial walker and landed on the support platform that anchored the command pod of the walker - its "head" - to its thin, weak-looking legs.

_If this actually works,_ he thought with a terse shake of his head, _I_ _’m going to owe my guardian angel a massive thank-you._

Holding onto the back of the AT-STs right laser turret, he swung back his other arm and dug a lightsaber deep into the machinery beneath the command pod. The blade sunk deep into the metal, melting through it with a spray of sparks and the hiss of superheated gas. With a grimace, he forced the lightsaber deeper, then dragged sideways.

The command pod rattled and pivoted violently in an attempt to shake him loose. He held on as tightly as he could, sawing his lightsaber through the thick metal connectors that anchored the pod to its spindly legs. He was bucked and tossed about, but his grip on the turret didn’t falter and he managed to stay anchored. He lost his footing only once, but managed to hoist himself back to a more secure position to continue his sabotage.

Then, accompanied by the screech of rending metal, the command pod separated from its legs. The rectangular pod fell to the ground with a tremendous crash as the severed legs continued to walk with a jerking, hectic motion, vainly attempting to carry out their last command. Vhetin himself back-flipped off the sparking support platform, triggering his rocket pack to carry him away from the damage. He landed upright a few feet away, panting hard and holding one hand to his stomach.

_It worked,_ he thought dazedly. _It actually worked!_

But the battle wasn’t over yet. Barely stopping to catch his breath, he walked up to the command pod and, with a single stroke, cut it in half horizontally. Two Imperial walker pilots cowered within, covering their heads and whimpering. Vhetin scowled and shot both men with stun bolts from his rifle. Behind him, the walker’s legs finally toppled to the ground.

There was silence throughout the room.

Vhetin frowned as he slowly turned back to survey the impromptu battlefield. The bulk of the problem had been dealt with, but there were still five more troopers remaining. Why weren't they shooting at him?

He slowly looked around, still breathing hard from the exertion of fighting the walker, but didn't see any more troopers anywhere. The room around him was as dead as a graveyard, save for the sporadic sparks of the downed scout walker and the exhausted groans of the few survivors of the fight. The remaining troopers must have run when they saw the AT-ST go down.

Convinced he was safe for now, he deactivated his lightsabers and hooked them back to his belt.

_All right. One problem dealt with. On to the next._ He took a deep, calming breath and headed toward the coolant intake system's main control. It was a large panel situated on a platform overlooking the twisted mess of pipes and vats that feed liquid coolant to the huge turbolaser turrets in the outpost above.

He looked over the complicated setup with a swiftly deepening scowl. There were buttons and levers of all shapes, sizes, and colors here. Some he recognized, like an intercom control. He quickly keyed it off so he wouldn't have to make up some strange cover story if someone called in for a sit-rep. The rest of the buttons, however, were completely alien to him and far beyond his training with mechanics.

_That_ _’s just great,_ he thought, shaking his head. _I_ _’m supposed to destroy this system, but I don’t have a clue how._

He tried to establish a comm channel with Rame, hoping his friend would know how to shut this thing down. But after a few moments, his transmission recieved nothing but static. He must be too deep now for any signal to get through.

_Well,_  he thought,  _simple plans are usually the most effective_.

He didn’t like being so crude about matters, but he was on a tight schedule and was already falling behind. The time for subtlety had long since passed. So he pulled a fragmentation grenade off his belt, primed it for a three second delay, then lobbed it straight into the middle of the tangle of pipes. He quickly turned away before the explosion went off.

A _bang_ echoed through the room as the frag detonated. The shrapnel that flew outward penetrated hundreds of pipes, spilling acidic coolant solution that quickly began to eat through other pipes and control panels. A warbling alarm rang through the room, and a much larger explosion blossomed from the end of a large pipe.

Vhetin cocked his head, surprised.  _It worked_ , he thought.  _Today is just full of surprises._

Then he turned and sprinted back the way he'd come as the coolant intake system shook itself to pieces behind him. It didn't take him long to get back to the huge staircase he had jumped down. He took two steps up the stairs, relieved that he could finally conserve some fuel in his jet pack.

Then a huge explosion shook the base, echoing toward him from the direction of the room he'd just destroyed.

" _-hat would be the turret above the coolant intake system collapsing,"_ Rame said suddenly over the comlink. " _And communications are back, by the way._ "

"Good to know." Vhetin looked back into the tunnel and saw an ominous glow lighting up the hall, accompanied by a colossal roar that his audio dampers had trouble muffling. “What the kriff is that?”

“ _Ah, that_ _’ll probably be the fallout from the aforementioned collapsing turret. You might want to get the kriff out of there while you still can.”_

Seconds later, a wall of fire rushed down the tunnel, heading straight for him.

"Oh kriff," Vhetin muttered. So much for conserving jet pack fuel.

The wall of fire was bearing down on him, racing up the hall in a blazing, undulating inferno. Taking the stairs was suicide, so he wasted no time in triggering his pack and blasting upward. Even with the increased speed, it didn't help much. The fire was still gaining, moving faster than his pack could carry him.

The inferno hit the bottom of the stairs and flew up the stairwell, filling the area below him with swiftly approaching flames. Vhetin gritted his teeth and tried to push the jet pack harder. The gear screamed in protest and the jets sputtered dangerously, but the speed of his ascent slowly began to grow. Still, the fire drew closer and closer until he could feel it licking around his chest. The floor numbers flashed rapidly past him, almost too fast to read.

12...10...8...5...

_Still too slow!_ The edges of his vision began to glow red-hot as the fire engulfed him and his audio dampers could do nothing to filter out the noise of the flames around him. His combat suit began to smolder, the fire burning through his flight suit and searing his skin. He had only seconds to escape, maybe less.

He had to get out, but any kind of random course correction would slam him right against a wall of duracrete. His only chance was if he could somehow break through a wall into a room beyond. The only option was the lobby he had come from.

He watched the floor numbers flash by, knowing that the slightest miscalculation would leave him looking like little more than a charred splat on the wall. The numbers flashed by faster than ever now, almost too fast to read.

4… 3… 2…

He closed his eyes and thought,  _kriff this is going to hurt._ Then he let out a yell and blasted himself sideways.

For a moment, he knew he hadn't made it; his body met only hard, unyielding duracrete. The fire roared up around him, engulfing him in a blazing inferno that charred his limbs and left his armor glowing red-hot. He closed his eyes and gritted his teeth against the pain, shoving himself sideways and pushing his pack’s thrust to full capacity.

_Come on_ , he thought as the fire continued to roar around him. _Come on!_

There was a loud _crack_  and the wall finally gave way _._ His pack sputtered and screamed, shoving him hard through the wall with a crash of splintering duracrete. He broke through into open air and hit the ground hard, skidding a few feet before his pack finally cut out. Chips of seared duracrete cascaded down around him, making quiet  _pock, pock_  sounds as they bounced across the marble floor.

A second later, a blazing pillar of fire erupted from the hole in the wall, racing through the foyer of the command center. Shelves of flimsiplast were instantly set ablaze and plastoid furniture warped and twisted under the heat. The inferno continued for a few moments before finally tapering off and snaking back into the wall as the explosion within finally faded away. After a few moments, even the thundering roar of the explosion had faded away into silence.

For a moment, all Vhetin could hear was the dazed ringing in his ears. Dust and ash rained down around him as he tried to push himself up onto his hands and knees. His strength failed and he fell heavily to the floor again. Taking a deep breath, he rolled onto his back and stared up at the ceiling, still smoking from the fire.

_That was lucky,_ he had time to think.

Then he let out a breath and collapsed in a heap, coughing uncontrollably. The coughing fit continued for a few moments, until his hearing returned and he once again heard the sounds of blasterfire and battle from outside. Once he'd regained his composure, he stood and shook ash and duracrete dust off his shoulders.

The once-pristine foyer of the command center was now in ruins. Chunks of duracrete littered the tiled floor and fires randomly dotted the room. Almost every piece of furniture was overturned, spilling charred flimsiplast documents and reports across the ground.

" _You okay?_ " Rame said over the comlink. “ _I need a sitrep._ _”_

Vhetin glanced at the hole in the wall. Smoke was still wafting from it, but the fire had died. "I'm a little toasted,” he said, “but I'm fine. And the turrets are out."

" _That's one problem dealt with. Good work._ "

Vhetin nodded, ducking into a back room so no passing troopers would see him. The sounds of battle still raged outside. "In the meantime, we've got another one. Our bounty is nowhere to be seen."

" _Give me a minute. I'll see if I can trace his comlink._ "

"Don't bother," Vhetin said. He brushed some sheets of flimsi off a nearby desk and picked up a small black cylinder made of polished durasteel. "It's here, sitting on his desk. The General must have bugged out pretty fast when he saw me heading toward the command center."

" _Your reputation precedes you._ "

"Apparently," he murmured. "Where could he have gone? All the ships have been taken out."

" _Accessing schematics of the prison... okay, there's only one place he could've gone. There's an emergency passage behind the southeastern wall that leads to the prison facility. Oh, Death Row. Very nice escape route._ "

Vhetin nodded and turned to the wall. It was shielded by a durasteel shelf that covered the entire wall with shimmering holographic "books."

" _Can you find some kind of secret switch?_ "

“A secret switch? What is this, some kind of bad spy holovid?”

“ _Hey, I_ _’m just reading the schematics. I didn’t make them. It’s not my fault Imperials are this dramatic.”_

Vheting didn’t have time to go searching for secret switches and hidden passages. Every second was precious, especially now that the turrets were down, and playing by the Imperial’s rules would only waste time. He considered heading outside and resuming the search there. But then he remembered how easily he'd taken out the coolant intake system; maybe he could simplify this as well.

He took a few steps back and leveled his arm, hooking his last wrist rocket to the launcher on his gauntlet. He grimaced and readied himself, digging his heels into the ground to prepare for the inevitable explosion. Then he fired the rocket at point-blank range.

The holobook shelf exploded in a cloud of debris and the hidden durasteel door behind it was blown inward, twisting and warping from the force of the explosion to leave an opening wide enough he could fit through. He grimaced against the explosion, only looking back when the chips of shrapnel stopped bouncing across the floor.

"Okay," he said over comms. "I found the switch."

Rame’s voice was skeptical. “ _I can tell when you_ _’re lying. You blew it up, didn’t you?”_

“Me?” Vhetin said, stepping toward the blasted-in door. “Not a chance. I’m classier than that.”

“ _Oh yeah. You totally blew it up._ _”_

As he ducked into the small opening he'd made in the door, Vhetin paused and narrowed his eyes. A large, engraved rectangle of polished durasteel had gone flying off the desk when he'd bashed through the wall to escape the turret collapse. The force of the ensuing explosion had embedded it into the duracrete next to the door.

It was a name plaque, engraved with an elaborate signature: General Ponsius Luun.

He found himself smiling with satisfaction as he pulled himself through the gap in the door. The general was close. His hunt was almost over.


	7. The Escape

Luun cowered in the dank cell, frantically coding in a priority-one emergency broadcast on a comlink he'd taken from a dead stormtrooper. By the time he broke through the security codes and moronic secretaries and finally reached Lord Vader on Coruscant, he was quivering in terror.

" _What is it, General?_ " Vader’s baritone voice streaming from the comlink was far too loud.

Luun swiftly turned the volume down and hissed, "Lord Vader! Thank the Emperor I was able to get hold of you!"

" _Has Captain Kolta divulged the name of her employer yet?_ "

"No! N-no, my lord. The prison is under attack and the assailants are inside the walls. The reports say there are at least five of them, plus  _three_  snipers! I think they're bounty hunters!"

There was silence from Vader's end of the comlink.

"They must be after me! Ever since that post on Ryloth..."

When there was still no answer, Luun almost fainted in terror. A loud explosion came from further down the hall behind him and he whipped around.

_They've breached the security door!_

He turned back to the comlink, clutching at it like a drowning man to a flotation device. "L-lord Vader?"

" _That is..._ " Vader paused for entirely too long. " _That is most disappointing, General._ "

The comlink went dead.

"L-lord Vader? Lord Vader!" Luun sputtered, shaking the comlink. "Lord Vader,  _save me_!"

But the Dark Lord did not speak again.

~~~~~~~~

Vhetin squeezed through the gap in the security door, rifle held at the ready.

Death Row was not a pretty sight. Dirty cell bars flanked by dirty walls over a dirty floor illuminated by dirty light. Vhetin's lip curled in disgust as he stepped around a large puddle of off-color liquid. The prisoners were all either cowering at the back of their cells or pressed up against the bars, watching the proceedings with contempt. One of the latter, a muscled behemoth decorated with tattoos, spat at him as he passed.

"Hey bucket-head!" he called out. "Come to spring one of us?"

"You can rot in there," Vhetin replied, scowling at the man's use of the derogatory term  _bucket-head_. "I'm not here for any of you. I have an appointment with the good general."

Hearing this, a few of the inmates cheered and called out, "Go get him bucket-head!"

Vhetin ignored them all. Halfway down the hall, however, he paused outside the cell of one prisoner who was cowering in the back, crying. That voice almost seemed familiar. He found his mind drifting back to research and reports featuring his target. A cursory scan with his HUD confirmed the man’s identity.

General Luun, in the flesh.

"General Luun?" he asked with mock-kindness. "Is that you,  _vod'ika_?"

The general whipped around, a small field pistol in his right hand. Vhetin’s instincts kicked in, and he instantly raised his rifle and shot the back of Luun's hand. The general screamed and collapsed, curling into a ball and cradling his burned and bleeding arm. The field pistol clattered to the ground.

Vhetin kicked the door in, weapon pointed squarely at Luun's head. The general was worth more alive, but if he tried to pull anything else Vhetin would fry him anyway. Reward money wasn't any good if a hunter was dead.

"On your feet," Vhetin growled, putting a hand under the general's arm and hauling him up. "King Laatu sends his regards."

Luun spat in Vhetin's face in a last-ditch attempt at defiance. Vhetin didn’t flinch. A half-second later, the systems in his helmet's HUD sent an electrical charge across the visor, evaporating the spittle in a small puff of smoke and leaving his vision clear.

He was about to move out of the cell when his motion tracker showed movement behind him. His helmet's 360-degree vision picked up a man-sized shadow darting closer. Vhetin caught a glimpse of white armor and a black undersuit, as well as twin pistols drawn and primed to fire.

_Will these Imps never learn?_  he thought in exasperation. He spun and pointed his rifle at the stormtrooper that had managed to creep right up behind him.

“Stop right there if you want to live.”

The first thing that struck him was the trooper’s stylized helmet: a unique amalgamation of old Clone Wars-era gear and more modern stormtrooper tech. The trooper also had a pistol in each hand, both aimed squarely at Vhetin's forehead.

They stayed there, weapons aimed directly at each other's faces, for what seemed like an eternity.

"Go ahead," Vhetin finally said, tightening his finger on the firing stud. "Shoot, if you think you can pull it off before I do."

"Now why would I do that," the trooper said, "when I was the one who called you here in the first place?"

Vhetin paused and his pistol barrel lowered the slightest bit. "Tammer?"

The old clone laughed and holstered his pistols, raising his hands as a sign of peace. "Alive and kicking. It's good to see you too, Vhetin."

" _Is that Tam?_ " Rame said excitedly over the comlink. " _You didn't say Tam was your contact!_ "

Vhetin lowered his weapon, letting his guard down momentarily. This was no run-of-the-mill Imperial white job, but an old friend. He leaned forward and embraced the trooper with a smile. When Luun tried to use the distraction to run, Vhetin simply stuck his foot out and tripped him.

"Sorry about the rifle," the bounty hunter said as he pulled Luun back to his feet. "I didn't know who you were."

"Don't bother with it," Tammer said. He turned his gaze to Luun, scrutinizing the cowering man with obvious distaste. "I see you've found the  _hut'uun_ we call a general around here."

"It took a bit of a chase," Vhetin said, tightening his grip on Luun's arm as the man tried to pull away again, "but yeah. I’ve got him."

"You!" Luun cried, pointing his good hand at Tammer. "You're the one who's been leaking information to these... these...  _bounty hunters_! I'll make sure you're court-martialed! Arrested! _Executed_! Lord Vader himself will know of your treachery against the Empire you disloyal, unfaithful dog! In fact-"

"May I?" Tammer asked, indicating Luun.

Vhetin shrugged. "Be my guest."

Tammer cocked his fist back and punched the general square in the jaw. The general stumbled, fell to the ground, and started crying all over again.

"Thanks," Tammer said, rubbing his knuckles. "I've wanted to do that for a _very_ long time."

With a grunt, Vhetin hauled the blubbering Imperial back to his feet again. "My pleasure."

There was a brief moment of silence, during which another explosion went off somewhere outside the building. No one but Luun paid it any attention. Instead, Vhetin regarded Tammer's armor, eyes lingering on the red pauldron plate that adorned his right shoulder.

"So, you made full captain, eh? Congratulations. I knew you had it in you."

Tammer shrugged. "The rank has its ups and downs. As a clone, I get no respect from my underlings and my superiors... well, they didn't like me from the beginning. But on the upside, I have leverage over three-quarters of the low-level and mid-level officers here. At BlueSend, Tammer is effectively the puppet-master."

"You know there'll always be a place for you back on Mandalore if you want it."

Tammer suddenly hesitated. "Yeah…"

"What's wrong?"

The old clone awkwardly shifted his weight from foot to foot and quietly said, "Uh, Vhetin... I have a favor to ask you. For old time's sake."

Vhetin frowned. He didn’t like where this conversation was suddenly headed. "What?"

"It'll be easier to show you. Follow me."

The clone gestured to follow and Vhetin, after some initial hesitation, shrugged and pulled a pair of binders from his belt. Yanking Luun's arms behind his back, he cuffed the general’s arms together and hissed, "Looks like we're going for a bit of a detour. You should be thankful that you'll get to see your precious base one last time."

Luun’s only response was a terrified whimper.

Then they set off down the dark, dank hallway. The general's boots dragged through the puddles that had collected on the floor as the man tried his best to resist. When he grew fed up with the defiance, Vhetin sighed, drew his pistol, and shot the man in the back with a low-energy stun bolt; not enough to knock him out, but more than enough to get him moving.

"I'll hit you with a real one next time if you don't move your feet,” Vhetin growled. “Last warning."

The general reluctantly began walking.

"Good boy." Vhetin shoved Luun in front of him, sticking the pistol in his back. "Now behave and you'll have a few more hours of peace before you're in any real trouble."

They walked on in silence, listening to the explosions and the muffled din of battle outside. Rame was thankfully still keeping everyone busy in the courtyard. It was some time before Tammer spoke again.

"To tell the truth," the old clone said, "I wasn't completely sure you remembered me."

"Sure I do," Vhetin replied. "We  _Mando'ade_ smuggle clones out of the military all the time, but it's not often that we try and smuggle someone back  _into_ the Empire. Skirata still misses you, by the way."

Tammer chuckled. "Sentimental old  _shabuir_. Tell him I send my regards, would you?"

Vhetin nodded. "In the meantime, what's this favor you want me to do? I don’t normally agree to things without knowing all the information beforehand."

Tammer paused by a cell and gestured at it with a weary sigh. "See for yourself."

Propped up against the back wall was a woman about Vhetin’s age, battered and unconscious. Her face was covered in purple-black bruises and her right eye was swelled completely shut. Long brown hair fell down over her eyes in a messy curtain, partially obscuring her features. Blood stained her face and neck, and she was sprawled across the floor like she hadn’t moved since the guards threw her back into custody.

Vhetin frowned behind his helmet faceplate. Who was she? She didn’t look overly threatening. If anything, she looked like a perfectly normal young woman save for the obvious injuries. But this was a maximum-security facility. What could she possibly have done to land in this hellhole?

"She can't stay here," Tammer said, sympathy evident in his voice.

Vhetin turned back to him with a frown. This was a surprising request coming from the old clone. And if there was one thing he hated, it was surprises in the middle of carefully-planned operations.

"You want me to break her out?"

"I'm not normally one to break spring people prison, but I need her gone. She's scheduled for daily torture. Then execution."

Vhetin gazed around him with a skeptical eyebrow raised, though Tammer couldn't see it. Another explosion went off somewhere in the distance and the ground rumbled beneath their boots, shaking small chunks of duracrete loose from the ceiling.

“ _That would be turret number two collapsing,_ _”_ Rame reported.

"This is just a hunch," Vhetin said, "but I think she'll be fine for a few months more. This place won't be able to administer execution services for a while."

"Please," Tammer pleaded. "She's here on false charges. She's innocent!"

Now  _that_  was interesting, and it made Vhetin finally hesitate. Taking this woman with him would be risky, maybe even fatal. Luun was doing everything he could to hinder their progress already, and this woman would undoubtedly slow them down even more. He had no time for  _aruetii_ civilians on a mission like this.

But if the woman was truly innocent, she didn't deserve to be in this prison cell. Unsurprisingly, the Empire had once again overlooked justice in order to further its own goals. _That_ was a predicament he could sympathize with.

Would he have to sacrifice his mission to get her out? He couldn't do that. He _wouldn_ _’t_ do that. He had been hired to capture Luun and he wasn't going to let the general escape because of one falsely incarcerated Imperial. But at the same time, he couldn't leave her to die here. If she was falsely accused, she deserved better than to rot in prison before a painful execution. And he wasn't the kind of man who could walk away and let innocent people die when there was something he could do about it.

He eventually sighed out a weary curse. "All right. You hit me in my soft spot. I'll take her with me. But  _you_ have to help get us out of here. I can’t carry her and make sure Luun behaves at the same time."

“Thank you, Vhetin,” Tammer sighed. “I owe you one.”

“You don’t owe me anything. Let’s just get her out of here and be on our way.”

Tammer tried typing in the code to unlock the doors. The ray shields were down, but the doors were still locked. When he entered the code, all he got was a very unsatisfying buzz. He frowned, then typed the code in again. The doors still didn't budge. The old clone cursed and slammed his palm against the controls, again to no avail.

"Damn it," he snapped. "Security lockdown secured the doors."

He turned to Vhetin and gestured to the heavy bars. "Would you mind?"

Vhetin nodded and leveled his pistol at the cell door's hinges. He fired three times, once at each hinge, and the door fell to the ground with a loud  _clang_. Tammer quickly stepped inside and scooped the unconscious woman into his arms.

"Come on," he said. "We'll have to hurry if we want to make it to the gate."

"I've got another plan," Vhetin interjected. "All we have to do is get outside."

"Okay," Tammer said. "Can you carry her?"

Vhetin nodded and took the unconscious woman while Tammer drew his pistols. "I'll take point," the old clone said.

"We'll be right behind you."

" _I_ won't," Luun muttered stubbornly. He dug his soiled Imperial boots into the floor and scowled at them. Since Vhetin had his hands full carrying the woman, Tammer took the initiative and drove the butt of one of his pistols into the side of the Imperial’s skull. Luun quickly grew more cooperative.

"What exactly is this plan you've got cooked up?" Tammer said as they set off toward the exit. "I hope it doesn't involve you blowing up this entire facility. That would look pretty bad on my report."

Vhetin shook his head. "A while ago, I took out the coolant intake system powering the turrets. If all went well, the turrets are currently overheating, leaving the skies clear. Rame's going to come in and pick us up in my ship."

"So that's what that first explosion was." Tammer nodded, clearing the room before saying, "All right. Come on through."

"Rame." Vhetin triggered his comm as he kicked Luun in the backside, pushing him through the gap in the door. "I need you to come pick us up. We don't have much time."

" _Already here_ ," he replied. " _I made this easy on you and set down on the landing pad. I_ _’m keeping the Imperials at bay with_ Void’s _turret system, but I can_ _’t stay for long._ "

Vhetin nodded and relayed the message to Tammer. The clone captain was already pressed into cover by the doorway, pistols at the ready. The clone nodded at the information and said, "Your ship's right there but… well, if it's not too much trouble, we need to make sure it looks like I'm not actually helping you."

Vhetin understood his concern; if the security cameras scattered around the prison perimeter showed Tammer helping them escape, another execution would soon be in order. The cams inside had been taken out by the damage to the base – Rame had knocked out the building’s power generator with a well-placed sniper bolt – but outside was just as active as ever.

All Tammer knew was military life. Vhetin could respect his desire to stay where he was. Still, he felt compelled to give the old clone a chance.

"Are you _sure_ you don't want to come with us?" he asked. "Skirata would be overjoyed to have you back."

"And leave my post just when things got interesting?" Tammer shook his head. "Nah. I'll stick it out with the Empire for a while longer. But I'll watch the HoloNet intently for news on you, Vhetin. The way you attacked this outpost… that was amazing. Worthy of Fett himself."

“I always aim to please.” Vhetin nodded toward the unconscious woman in his arms. "And any special requests for her?"

Tammer glanced at the woman and his voice softened. "Just make sure she's okay. Help her to start her life over. This'll be hard on her, but I'm sure she'll make it."

"She means a lot to you?"

Tammer chuckled. "Old clones like me don’t make many friends in the Empire. I think it's our charming personalities. But she turned out to be a pretty good friend to an old kath hound like me. She deserves this."

"Heard and understood. I guess I'll see you around."

"Not if I can help it," Tammer said, only half-joking. "It's not good for an up-and-coming officer like me to have connections to a bounty hunter such as yourself. No offense."

"None taken," Vhetin said with a smile. "Good luck Tammer."

"And to you, Cin," Tammer replied before settling into a firing position, his pistols held at arm's length. "In the meantime, I'll give you a five second head start."

Vhetin nodded, shoved Luun out in front of him, and growled, "If I were you, Imperial, I'd head for the ship. Tammer will be shooting to kill."

“W-what?”

“Have to make it look convincing, don’t I?” Tammer said. “Five… four… three…”

Luun gulped, then sprinted as fast as he could towards  _Void_ , which was resting on the landing pad, ready for immediate takeoff. Vhetin nodded in farewell to the clone, then sprinted out into the open as well.

"You… you've picked up an extra one, Cin," Rame said a few moments later, standing on  _Void_ 's entrance ramp. "I don't know if you remember, but the contract said-"

He was cut off as Tammer planted two blaster bolts into the durasteel right next to his head.

"Holy…" Rame hopped away, his eyes wide. "What was  _that_?!"

"Long story," Vhetin grunted, shoving Luun up the ramp. "Tammer is providing us with permission to take off."

"Well you don't have to  _enjoy_  it so much!" Rame yelled at Tammer. He then recoiled as another bolt exploded next to his head. The old clone was standing about a hundred meters from the ship, unloading his pistols at them as they fled.

"Mandalorian _scum_!" he shouted at them.

"Fierfek." Rame shook his head in disbelief. "He's really pouring it on, isn't he?"

"Rame!" Vhetin snapped. "We need to leave!  _Now_!"

"Oh. Right." He broke and ran back toward the cockpit.

Vhetin shoved Luun into a nearby side room. The cramped compartment was filled with durasteel cages for bounty storage. Vhetin gestured at an open one and snarled, "In you get, General. No time to stand on ceremony."

Luun stared at the cages with wide eyes. "You must be joking."

"I’m not much of a joker. Get in or I'll put you in."

Luun stared at him, then grudgingly crawled into the cage and slammed the door shut behind him. Vhetin, adjusting his hold on the woman in his arms, reached over and punched a button on the wall. The space between the bars lit up with the shimmering light of a force field that would keep the prisoner safely penned in.

Convinced his quarry was secure, Vhetin carried the unconscious woman into the sleeping quarters where he secured her in rudimentary crash webbing. He triple-checked that she wasn’t going to bounce free, then sprinted for the cockpit. He had to move carefully since the ship was already lifting off and the deck was shaking beneath his boots.

He keyed open the door to the cockpit to find Rame sitting in the copilot's seat, his helmet resting on the floor next to him. He was typing in course corrections and setting up the navigational computer as the autopilot blasted them away from the planet. After a few moments, the pop of blaster fire ricocheting against the hull faded away.

"How're we coming along?" Vhetin asked him.

"We have no TIE fighter reinforcements incoming, the ship cams show that Luun's still in the cages, the flight deck seems to be clean of any other Imperial life, and we're well on our way out of here.” Rame sighed and leaned back in his chair. “And with comms knocked out at BlueSend, it’ll be at least a few hours until they can report the attack. I’d say we’re in the clear.”

Vhetin let out a deep breath, his shoulders slumping in relief. “That’s good to hear. Nice work out there.”

Rame let out an exhausted chuckle. “And to you, _vod._ So who the hell is the girl?"

"Long story. I'll tell you when we're away from this soakhole."

"When we get back to Keldabe, drinks are on you. And believe me, I'm going to need 'em."

"Deal. Let's go and collect our money, then head back home."

He checked the ship’s sensors and found them more than satisfactory. No Imperials were flying to intercept them. The ones that were moving were headed down to the planet's surface, probably to the now-ruined BlueSend outpost. Satisfied that they were unseen, he pulled back a lever after the navicomputer signaled that the coordinates were set.

The ship rumbled and shook, then the stars blurred to streaks and exploded into the whirling blue-white tunnel of hyperspace.

Vhetin waited a few moments, then relaxed against the pilot's seat. He slowly removed his helmet and rubbed his tired, aching eyes. After taking a moment to regain his composure he eyed what remained of his equipment. Parts of his armor were burned and still red-hot from absorbing rifle fire, his combat suit was charred and torn, and he'd received a pretty nasty blaster burn to his shoulder. Otherwise, he was fine.

He would bandage up his shoulder a little later. For now, he just sat back in his seat and closed his eyes.

_That_ _’s it,_ he thought as he felt sleep tug at his senses. _Mission accomplished._


	8. The Girl

**Coordinates unknown, hyperspace tunnel en route to Nar Shadda**

Jay's head hurt; that was the first thing she remembered as the infinite black of unconsciousness peeled away to reveal a blurry gray field of vision. She blinked and moaned, trying to press a hand to her pounding head. Her hand didn’t move, nor did her arm. She tried again, but found her arm just as limp and lifeless as before.

Oh no. Had Vader broken it while interrogating her? She couldn't remember. She tried moving her other arm and found it just as unresponsive. Attempting to sit up was met with the same failure. She blinked, then winced as a splitting pain erupted in her head.

_What the hell?_

She grimaced as she forced her eyelids to open and tried to focus on the world around her. As her blurry vision resolved and became clearer, her worry quickly turned into confusion.

"This isn't the prison." Her voice was barely a whisper, but it seemed very loud to her ears. "Where am I?"

She looked around, thankfully able to slowly move her head from side to side. Was she in the execution room already? Just how long had she been unconscious?

As she looked down at her arms, she realized she wasn't restrained with the usual binders or electroshock shackles. Instead, she was held to an uncomfortable cot by simple crash webbing. It took a few painful moments to unhook herself from the webbing. Taking a deep breath, she slowly sat up and rubbed her aching forehead.

Thankfully, it didn’t seem like anything was broken. She was battered, bruised, bloodied, and sore all over, but she was alive.

_Alive_. The word seemed strange to her, especially given the events of the past few days. Not many people could claim the same after being locked in an interrogation room with an angry Darth Vader.

She shook her head, then instantly regretted the motion as a sharp stab of pain raced through her forehead. _I don_ _’t know what I did to deserve this kind of luck. Maybe I was a Jedi in a previous life or something…_

She finally brought herself to look around, wincing as her muscles screamed in protest. The first thing she noticed was how clean everything was: spotless slate-gray walls and floors, polished to a sheen that was usually only seen on starships; ships had to be thoroughly cleansed to avoid transferring contagions from planet to planet. BlueSend Prison had no such regulations.

So sometime while she was unconscious, someone had transferred her from the prison to this mysterious ship. Was she being transferred to a different installation? That seemed unlikely. The guards had always found it fun to rub in the fact that she would never leave BlueSend for the rest of her short life.

Whatever this ship was, she knew she was in the quarters. The strange thing was that there was no one else that she could see, and the Empire wouldn't transfer someone as insignificant as her on her own. She wasn’t important enough to warrant a solitary transport. She slowly slid off the cot and stood on shaky legs, intent on finding out just what had happened to her.

Her shoes had been one of the first things she’d lost when entering the prison months ago, and the starship floor was frigidly cold under her bare feet. She grimaced and curled her toes against the sensation, then gingerly limped toward the door. The wall was just as cold under her fingertips, and she almost thought she could see her breath on the air.

_The ship is running cold_ , she thought, her heart sinking with every step she took. _Trying to avoid showing up on thermal scanners. Whatever this ship is, it obviously wants to stay hidden._

"Hello?" she called hoarsely. She could hear her voice echo in the cramped room. There was no answer.

With a pained grimace she limped to the door, pressed the opening stud, and watched it slide open with a sigh. She peeked her head outside the door to find a long hallway lit from above with cylindrical illuminators. Next to her door was a security panel, but the keys were inscribed with strange letters she didn't recognize. She thought about trying out a couple simple commands, then decided against it; if this was a prison ship, it would probably send enforcement officers right to her location.

_But is this really a prison ship_? The more she dwelled on the idea, the less believable it became. This ship seemed to have no cells, no guards, no ray shields, no turrets… nothing. Not even the Imperial Wheel emblazoned on the wall to remind the crew that they served the Emperor above all else.

_So where am I_?

She almost screamed when she suddenly heard a door open somewhere nearby. She stifled it into a quiet gasp and squeezed up against the ice-cold wall, trying to make herself as small and inconspicuous as possible. Further down the hall, two people passed from one room to another while talking in hushed tones. Once their voices had faded, Jay leaned out and scanned the corridor.

Empty once again. But she still heard voices coming from the room the two had entered. She crept forward and glanced inside, keeping her footsteps as quiet as possible. She saw two figures inside the room with their backs turned, obviously caught up in a heated debate.

Her heart was racing uncomfortably fast in her chest. She needed to learn more about her current predicament and she couldn’t clearly hear their conversation from her hiding place outside. So, against her better judgment, she slipped through the still-open door.

A cursory examination of the area told her that she was in the captain's quarters, or something very akin to that. It was a medium-sized room, maybe about the size of the crew's quarters she had just left. There was a neat-looking bed tucked against one wall, some kind of storage closet along another, and a durasteel desk seeming to flow straight from the metal of the hull closest to her. Scattered across the desk were glowing holodocs with scrolling words she didn't have time to read.

The two men who had spoken before were standing further in the room with their backs to her. One, possibly human, sported silver battle armor with red flashes and had his arms folded across his chest. The other one, wearing dull black and gray armor, was storing a short-barreled rifle in the closet.

As the second man removed his round battle helmet, Jay got a clear look at the unmistakable T-shaped visor and swooping cheek arches that adorned the armored faceplate. Her blood ran cold at the sight.

_Mandalorians_. _Bounty hunters._

Perfect. That was just what she needed right now. So she'd been kidnapped? If they thought she had some kind of price on her head, they were woefully misinformed. She'd only ever meant something to the Empire and they'd already caught her.

She ducked down next to the desk and listened to the conversation that was taking place between the two.

"Remember Kalinitch?" Silver-Red was saying. "That stupid lizard went crazy as soon as we brought him to Mandalore."

"He was a Trandoshan. They're supposed to be crazy. It's in their blood."

Jay was surprised at how young Black-Gray's voice sounded. He almost sounded her age, or at least around twenty. How could someone at her age give up a safe, legal career only to take up mercenary work?

_A Mandalorian, I guess_ , she thought. _Aren't they trained to fight from birth?_

"You're skirting the issue," Silver-Red snapped. "Answer the question."

Black-Gray sighed and turned away. As he came further into the light, Jay was almost relieved to see that he was indeed human beneath the armor. But his back was still mostly turned to her and she couldn't make out his face in any detail that could help her identify him. She saw a flash of short brown hair, then ducked back behind the desk again before someone spotted her.

She tucked herself into the smallest ball she could manage and listened as Black-Gray said, " _I_  barely know why I agreed to get her out of there. Tammer asked for a favor, so-"

Jay's confusion was mounting with every word she was hearing.  _Tammer_  had asked these men up to… to what? Rescue her? Kidnap her? Spirit her away to some Tatooine slave market, perhaps?

Silver-Red interrupted him angrily. "Answer the  _question_ , Cin. Why in the hell did you rescue her, too? Luun was the only target. She's of no value to anyone!"

Black-Gray began to pull battered-looking armor plates off his combat suit, inspecting them before setting them aside. He hesitated, then said, "I… I don't know, all right? I made a split-second decision. Let's just wait and see if it was a good one or a bad one.”

“I hope for our sake it was a good one,” Silver-Red muttered.

“Nothing we can do now but wait for her to wake up.” When Black-Gray pulled the top of his torn and dirty combat suit over his head, Jay had to stifle a gasp behind her hand.

The man's pale back was covered in old, ropy scars, each at least the length of her forearm. They zig-zagged across his flesh, standing out lividly against his too-pale skin. Jay counted at least seven, as well as what looked like a fresh blaster burn on his shoulder, hastily bandaged. Just what kind of battle could have left him with such scars, she couldn’t even imagine.

"So how is she?" Black-Gray said as he examined his combat suit top. After a moment, he tossed it onto the cot and pulled an identical flight suit out of the storage closet in front of him. He pulled it over his head and began to replace the battered armor plates.

Red-Silver shrugged. "Stable last time I checked her. She’s probably just sleeping off the last of whatever drugs they gave her down there.”

“Does your medical expertise shed any light on what she was doing in that prison?”

“She looks like she was interrogated. She has multiple contusions on her face and neck, almost like she was choked and beaten, but I can't make out any finger marks from the assailant.”

Black-Gray paused. “That’s interesting.”

“ _Interesting_ isn’t the word I would use.” Silver-Red shrugged. “I gave her bacta injections, so the majority of her bruises should clear up in a few hours. I was worried there would be internal bleeding, but it didn't look like any of her wounds penetrated the skin."

“You sound suspicious.” Jay couldn't see Black-Gray's expression with his back turned. She could only see him turn his head slightly and murmur, "Are you scared of her?"

"I’m cautious. She was put into that prison for a reason."

Black-Gray didn't say anything, but silently nodded. After some time of silence, Silver-Red shifted his weight and said, "We'd better check and see how close we are to Nar Shadda."

Black-Gray nodded in agreement. "You go ahead. I'm going to finish up checking my stuff, then I'll join you."

Silver-Red turned and Jay’s heart leapt into her throat. If they discovered her now… well, she didn’t want to imagine the fate in store for her. Mandalorians weren’t known for their kind hearts.

She began to move back out of the door, intending to slip away without being seen. She didn’t make it far before her foot accidentally bumped the edge of the desk. A small circular holoprojector teetered on the edge, then fell. She muttered a panicked curse under her breath and moved to catch it.

Too slow. The projector bounced away across the metal floor, out of reach.

Silver-Red quickly reacted to the clatter, drawing a pistol and pointing it squarely at Jay’s forehead. Black-Gray also jumped into action, swiftly replacing his helmet and spinning with his rifle at the ready. Both rifles instantly cycled up, primed and ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

Jay let out a small squeak of terror and froze, her gaze darting between the barrels of each blaster. Her eyes felt as wide as the holoprojector she had knocked over.

What would happen now? Would they kill her? Stun her and lock her back in the crew’s quarters? She shuddered at the thought of being carted away to some mysterious planet by these two mercenaries.

“P-please,” she stammered, holding her hands up in surrender. “I-I didn’t mean to spy on you. Don’t hurt me…”

But after a moment that seemed to last an eternity, Silver-Red sighed and relaxed, holstering his pistol and moving toward her. Jay shrank back against the wall, trying to keep out of reach. Surprisingly, though, Silver-Red didn’t try to grab her. Rather, he knelt in front of her and pulled off his helmet to reveal a kind face sporting a calming smile. The man beneath the armor had close-cropped black hair shot through with gray, and one of his eyes was slightly disfigured by the path of an old scar that stretched across his forehead.

"Sorry about that," he said, offering her a hand. When Jay didn't move, he shook it for emphasis.

"I'm a good guy,” he insisted. “I won't bite, I promise."

Jay was torn torn between the need to believe his words and the desire to turn and run as quickly as her battered body could manage. After a few tense moments, her self-preservation instinct lost the debate. She cautiously took the man’s hand and let him help her to her feet.

"You just caught us by surprise, that's all," Silver-Red said with a reassuring smile. “We… well, we weren’t expecting to have a guest on this trip.”

Black-Gray said nothing and just stood in the corner with his rifle lowered, staring at her. She stared back, looking into the faceless battle helmet until she shuddered and moved her gaze back to Silver-Red.

"We weren't expecting you to be awake for a few hours yet," the older man said as he opened the door and led her out into the hall. His hand on her shoulder was gentle, but commanding. "And even then we didn't know if you'd be able to walk."

Jay pulled out of the man's grasp and turned on him. "Wait a minute. Who are you? And where am I?"

“Oh, right. Introductions are in order.” Silver-Red thumped a clenched fist against his chest plate. "I'm Rame Omotao. My buddy back there is Cin Vhetin, and you’re currently aboard his personal transport, _Void_. What's your name?"

"Jay. Jay Kolta," she said, narrowing her eyes. "How… how did I get here?"

Rame let out a long breath and rolled his eyes. "That’s the question of the day, isn’t it? Short version: We were headed down to that lovely prison of yours to capture an Imperial General by the name of Luun-"

"You're bounty hunters," she said. “Both of you?”

"Actually, I only work part time. Vhetin back there is the complete bounty-hunting package. A seven-year veteran, actually."

Jay blinked, feeling her headache begin to return. This was all a little too much information for her in her still-feeble state.

"Anyway," Rame continued, "when he found out we were going to be passing through, your buddy Tammer gave Vhetin a call – discreetly of course - and said he'd give us Luun's location, free of charge. But when we got down there, he asked for a small favor: getting you out of prison.”

"You're the  _old friends_ he mentioned," Jay realized with dawning understanding.

_I have a backup plan_ , her friend had said. _Just some old friends who happen to be in the neighborhood._

"Probably." Rame nodded and scratched at the stubble on his jaw. "We go back a long way. But enough of that for now. You need to rest for a while. You look pretty battered."

“I feel pretty battered.”

Rame raised an eyebrow. "Those Imps didn’t treat you well down there, did they?”

She sighed and held a hand to her aching head as the memory of Darth Vader’s angular facemask flashed through her mind’s eye. “You have no idea.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about that anymore. Not if we have anything to say about it. Follow me and we'll head to the med bay."

She nodded and followed Rame further down the central hall, leaving the Black-Gray Mandalorian behind. The door to the captain’s cabin slid shut, obscuring him from view.

Towards the back of the ship, Rame keyed open a door and motioned her inside. Through the door was a small room, about the size of an Imperial general’s uniform closet. But squeezed into the area was a medical table and a small cabinet that she supposed carried emergency supplies. It looked surprisingly versatile for such a small place.

Rame moved toward the cabinet and pulled out a simple hypospray full of a clear liquid. As he turned, he must have noticed her expression of discomfort; she’d had more than enough experiences with needles for one lifetime.

“I just want to give you one more bacta injection,” he calmly explained. “Just to be sure you're okay inside and out."

"Are… are you sure you know what you're doing?"

"Of course. I'm a certified emergency med-tech.” He smiled. “More or less."

"So you're a part-time bounty hunter _and_ a doctor?" she asked skeptically. Despite her reservations, she took a seat on the medical table, reluctantly rolled up her sleeve, and offered the man her arm.

" _And_ a farmer," he said proudly as he swabbed her arm with rubbing alcohol. "All wrapped up into a single well-armored package."

She nodded and waited for him to do his work. She couldn't explain why, but she found herself slowly beginning to feel at ease around this man. She didn't sense any hostility from him, despite his fearsome-looking battle armor. And he hadn’t beaten her or threatened to kill her yet, which was more than could be said for half the other strangers she’d met over the past three months.

He quickly and efficiently injected the healing bacta into her arm, making sure the plunger on the syringe was completely depressed before retracting the needle. Jay blinked several times, a chilling sensation race up her arm as the bacta took effect.

"So… you said I was beaten. Just how bad is it?"

"Well, let me take a look…"

He touched her chin and turned her face slightly, his chiseled features drawn into a thoughtful frown. After a moment, he turned her face the other way. He grunted quietly, then began feeling along her forehead, probably checking for fractures.

After a few moments he folded his arms across his armored chest and said, "Well… for now you look like _osik,_ but you should be as good as new in a few days. There doesn’t seem to be any damage a few bacta injections can’t fix.”

"That's a relief… I think," she added, not quite sure what  _osik_  meant. "When I woke up, I was so sore it felt like I was about to die."

"That's probably natural, considering all you've been through."

She rubbed her arm absently, shivering as the bacta continued its work. "So where exactly are we going?"

"Right now we're headed to Nar Shadda to turn over that scum Luun and get paid. If you want, we can drop you off there. If not, we'll give you a lift to wherever you need to go. It's the least we can do."

"And after that? Where are you two headed?"

"Back to Mandalore," he replied with a small smile.

"Mandalore?" she asked. She'd heard the planet's name in the past, but exactly where she didn't remember. "Is that like your home?"

He nodded. "A save haven for bounty hunters and the biggest spot of anti-Imperial sentiment in our sector of the galaxy."

"Oh," Jay said, nodding and feeling slightly foolish. "Of course. Mandalorians from Mandalore. That makes sense."

He let out a short laugh. "We _Mando_ _’ade_ have been known to use our heads from time to time."

"You're teasing me." Jay narrowed her eyes, but couldn't hold back a grin of her own. She found it hard not to like this man, no matter how many times she told herself he hunted people for a living. He seemed like a kind person – and that was certainly the _last_ thing she’d expected to find when she’d woken up.

"Maybe," he said, heading for the door and replacing his silver-red helmet. "Maybe not. For now, I’ll let you rest. If you need anything, I'll be in the cockpit. Just give me a call over the ship’s intercom and I’ll come running."

She stopped him in the doorway. "Before you go, I'd like to ask you a question."

"Shoot." His voice sounded very different, much more menacing, coming from his helmet's vocoder. But his posture belied his fearsome voice; he leaned casually against the doorframe, folding one boot over the other and hooking his thumbs into his utility belt.

She hesitated. "Your friend… I don't remember his name."

"Vhetin?" Rame supplied.

"Yes. You said he was the one that got me out of that prison?"

"Him and Tammer, yeah," Rame looked suddenly uncomfortable, shifting his weight from foot to foot.

"I'd like to know why."

He shook his head with an weary sigh. "You and me both, sweetheart. You and me both."

She was about to ask what he meant by that, but he interrupted her before she could. "You should try to get some sleep. Get used to your well-deserved freedom."

She raised an eyebrow and grinned despite herself. "Is that advice, or an order?"

"Whichever you'd prefer. As long as you're aboard the  _Void_ , no one's going to bother you. You're safe with us. I can guarantee that."

She nodded, still smiling. "Thanks. And thanks for getting me out of there."

"It was our pleasure," he said, then turned and disappeared into the hall beyond. She listened to the sound of his heavy footfalls as they faded down the hall towards the cockpit.

Then the medbay doors sheathed closed, cutting her off from the rest of the ship and giving her some semblance of privacy for the first time in over three months. She lay back on the med table and closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath as she rested her hands over her stomach and felt her own slow, measured breathing.

_Get used to your well-deserved freedom_ , he'd said.

She thought she could do that.


	9. The Debate

Rame sat down in the copilot's seat with a sigh, then looked over at Vhetin, who was scanning through the nearest star systems on the ship's database.

"You okay?"

Vhetin's helmet was resting on the floor next to the pilot's chair. The bounty hunter's face was folded into a dark scowl as he punched at the controls to bring up another planet's info file. He rubbed at his chin as his eyes stared off into space, not really looking at anything and certainly not reading the info files placed before him.

Looking inward, not out, as Brianna liked to say.

Rame put a hand on Vhetin's armored shoulder and gently shook his friend. "Hey, you listening?"

Vhetin started and quickly returned to reality, blinking a few times before settling more securely into his seat. "Sorry, I was… thinking.”

“About the contract?” Rame knew that hollow tone in his friend’s voice. He adopted it whenever something was weighing heavily on his mind.

The black-armored Mandalorian nodded. “We were supposed to get in and out of there with minimal casualties. But we left a lot of wreckage behind back there."

"So the plan didn't go off flawlessly. It happens."

Vhetin let out a short, sarcastic laugh. "Yeah, ain't that a bitch. And they paid for it with thirty innocent lives."

Rame wasn’t surprised to hear Vhetin had been counting the casualties. It wasn’t because he was keeping score.

Still, he felt compelled to point out, "They're  _Imperials_ , remember? I don't think you should be feeling sorry for them, 'cause they sure wouldn’t be feeling sorry for you if the roles were reversed."

"I don't feel sorry for them. They were my enemies, standing between me and my target. They would have killed me, given the chance. But… at the same time, all they were doing was minding their own business. Doing their job. And we killed them in cold blood."

He shook his head and muttered, “There’s no honor in picking a fight for no good reason.”

"Such is life," Rame pointed out. This was not a new debate between them. Vhetin could be an unstoppable killing machine at times, but such power came at a heavy mental cost.

His friend nodded and a familiar cold, steely look came into his eyes. "Yeah. Such is life. Kill or be killed, huh?"

He frowned and rubbed his tired eyes. After a few moments, that steely look vanished in favor of a softer, much more tired expression. "So how's the girl?"

Rame chuckled, eager to change the subject. "Better behaved and better looking than Luun, that much I'll tell you."

"I'm serious."

"Seriously?" Rame said. "She's one hell of a catch, Vhetin. While I was checking her wounds, I ran a facial-recognition program on my helmet's HUD and crosschecked it with the name she gave me. Then I had Jaing back on Mandalore hack her file and send it to me. He was pretty impressed by her record."

"He got the job done fast," Vhetin said. "You were only gone for a few minutes."

"It’s probably a slow weekend back home. But guess what came back?"

Vhetin raised an eyebrow in curiosity while Rame pulled up a hacked Imperial data file on the terminal in front of them.

"Jayshiea Elmerie Naire-Kolta," Rame said as the file appeared on the largest holoscreen in the cockpit. "Fifth child of Cado Kolta and Antonyea Naire. She has six siblings, can you imagine?"

The Imperial record popped up with a column of numbers indicating age, height, date of birth, date of medicinal vaccinations, et cetera. The holopic attached to the report showed the image of an attractive young woman in Imperial uniform with long, wavy brown hair and dark brown eyes. Stitched in red onto the left side of her uniform chest was the call sign  _Phoenix_.

"She doesn't look much like her picture," Vhetin observed.

"Give the bruises a few days to clear up," Rame said. "She'll be back to normal in no time. Let's see what it says here… She was born on Corellia and graduated with flying colors from EduCenter 657-283. Ran into a little trouble with Imperial Law Enforcement while still a teenager for some minor things… trespassing on private property, irritating Imperial Enforcement officers… sounds like she had quite a keen interest in clone troopers when she was a kid. Uh… spent two months in juvenile incarceration for illegal skyhopper racing. She was a child prodigy with aircraft, apparently, but that was not really where her heart was… She applied repeatedly for active duty in the Imperial Navy at the age of sixteen, just after they changed the legal limit for military work…"

Vhetin rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Where did she apply?"

"Get this: she applied first for enlistment with the Stormtrooper 210th platoon, but was turned away on gender-based issues — the Empire doesn’t allow female stormtroopers after all. She was apparently pretty steamed about that and tried to take it all the way to the Courts, but no one would listen. She then applied for Imperial Special Forces, Logistics and Tactics division, but was turned away again because she had too little experience in the field. For the next year, her application popped up in nearly every combat outfit the Empire had to offer. The girl's got some spunk, huh?"

"She sounds like quite the patriot," Vhetin murmured. "Can we trust her with her obvious infatuation with the Empire's fighting forces?"

"Well, let's keep looking here… uh, she eventually landed a job as a fighter pilot with the 603rd TIE unit. Apparently the Navy is a little looser with gender regulations than the stormtrooper battalions.”

Vhetin shrugged. “Comes with the legacy of a formerly all-male clone army. Not many people want to break with that tradition.”

“Yeah, well the outfit she joined… uh,  _Phantom Squadron_. Over the next few years, she rose in rank until she was a full captain. Not bad."

"Not bad at all." Vhetin frowned thoughtfully. "She must have some skill in the cockpit. Go on."

"Well that's where it all hit the fan, apparently. About three months ago, this Phantom Squadron – among others - was dispatched to what's left of the Malachor system to mop up a little uprising happening there. Apparently these revolutionaries knew more and were better armed then the Empire thought. They were waiting for the Imps and tore through them like a nexu through glimmersilk sheets. Out of about fifty pilots, our girl was the only survivor."

"A testament to her piloting abilities."

"The Empire sure didn't see it that way," Rame said, squinting as he read. "She was accused and condemned for giving away battle plans and selling out her fellow pilots for a rather hefty sum. Her credit account spiked upwards of a hundred thousand creds in under twenty-four hours after the battle."

He let out a low whistle and sat back in his chair. "When the mighty fall, they take everyone else down with them, huh?"

"She didn't do it."

Rame blinked and glanced over at Vhetin. "What?"

"She didn't do it. Tammer said she's innocent, and I believe him."

"Cin, the credit statistics came with the file," Rame pointed out. "The money's all there."

"It was planted," Vhetin said. "By the Empire."

Rame frowned. "Come on, Cin. I know you've had some rough deals with them in the past, but—”

"The Empire has the wealth of a million worlds at its disposal. A hundred K? Pocket money for them."

"Okay, good point… But why? Why would the Empire give up so much money just for the heck of it?"

"Why do Imperials do any of the crazy things they do? They want to look good for their superiors. These records show that the money wasn't wired to her account until a day or so _after_ the battle was over. To most people, that looks like she was given the money when her employer received confirmation that the mission had gone to hell. Typical illegal thought process, right?"

"Right."

"But a day after the battle, the navy commanders sending out the orders would have known they got their asses kicked when their pilots didn't comm back with a report. And it doesn't take a genius to see that they needed a scapegoat. Since this woman was the only survivor, she was perfect scapegoat material, whether she wanted to be or not."

"So why did they go through so much trouble to interrogate her? I mean, if they knew it was all a lie, why would they bother?"

"Her captors had nothing to do with it. I'm guessing only members of the upper echelon of her navy outfit even know about the real reasons for the failure of the mission. Their necks were the ones on the line if they took responsibility for the failure, so they probably fed the whole 'traitor' bit to the Emperor himself. It's all propaganda and misinformation."

Vhetin leaned back in the pilot's seat and rubbed his chin again. "What does the psych report say?"

Rame blinked a few times, then said, "Vhetin, has anyone ever told you how smart you get when you're cranky?"

"Brianna's pointed that out several times, yes. What's the psych report say?"

Rame turned back to the holo. "Well, it says here that she is… highly intelligent, able to process information slightly faster than most humans are capable of... she gets along well with others, and is efficiently able to work as part of a team. She's got good ratings across the board from the psych analysts. Um… ooh, Vhetin," he made a face, showing mock-disgust. "It says here she has a cheerful sense of humor and is – Force save us –  _witty_."

Vhetin frowned. "Jokes can wait till after we get paid. Now isn't the time."

"Why?” That steely note had returned to the black-armored man’s voice and Rame narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “What're you thinking?"

Vhetin stared at the woman's holopic for several seconds before saying, "She sounds like she would make a good bounty hunter herself. And with a skill set like hers, she could be a valuable ally. She would need some training, but…"

Rame started at his friend’s words. " _What_?"

"You heard."

"You can't be serious. I mean, consider the recent partners you've worked with! List them: Kalinitch, Durge, Im'ran Ka-Toro-"

"You," Vhetin pointed out.

"I'm not joking any more, Cin. These guys were the toughest of the tough, and they all got stupid and tried to whack you! I don't know about you, but I'm beginning to notice a pattern there."

"Is there any more in the psych file?"

Rame shook his head and pulled down the file. "No, that's it. But let's just pretend I agree. I think she sounds like she's the perfect partner for you,  _vod_. In fact, let's bring up  _your_  psych evaluation and compare them, shall we? Just to prove you two were made for each other."

Vhetin grimaced and moved to leave his seat, but Rame pushed him back down and said, "No, sit down. I'm not done with my tirade."

"Come on, Rame, cut me some slack-"

"No, no, no," Rame said, typing in some commands. "I'm just evaluating your position."

After a few moments, Jay's file disappeared, only to be replaced by another Imperial record. The personnel holopic had been deleted, replaced with the words 'Classified Tier 3' in red letters.

"Hmm," Rame said, reading through the psych report. "Now what does this say? Subject shows extreme detachment from social roles... borderline sociopathic behavior... shows inclination towards self-destructive tendencies, despite apparent mental stability... ambiguous history... overall: subject is not suitable for standard infantry. Recommendation: solitary special forces, assassination, and mercenary work."

Rame looked at Vhetin and raised an eyebrow. "Now do those two psych reports seem to match up? Why no, I suppose they  _don't_."

Vhetin grimaced again, then said, "But you're leaving out all the good parts of the report, look..."

He leaned closer to the screen and began to read aloud, "Shows good social skills after some time, probably due to built-up 'trust'... able to keep self-destructive tendencies in check... extremely flexible with teamwork and able to function both as leader and follower as necessary... extreme problem-solving abilities... Addendum: Recommendation: special forces,  _two-man team_."

He sat back in the pilot's seat and said, "I've always worked better with a partner. You know this."

Rame shook his head. "I don't know, Vhetin. I've got a bad feeling about this."

"Let's just see what happens when we get to Nar Shadda. For all we know, she'll want to jump ship there and it won't even matter."


	10. The Bounty Hunter

**Nar Shadda, Nal Hutta system, Hutt Space**

Jay felt the world lurch as the ship landed, waking her from a deep sleep. She glanced around the crew's quarters where she was resting, then sat up and the digital chrono displayed on the far wall. She'd been sleeping for almost thirteen hours.

She rubbed her eyes and yawned. She hadn't realized it at first but after three months of being imprisoned, being free was exhausting.

She swung her legs off the cot, but didn't stand. Her mind was drifting back to Corulag and the tumultuous events that had followed her escape. The last thing she remembered was Darth Vader beating her against the tabletop when she wouldn't give him the name of her nonexistent employer. The next thing she knew, she was aboard this ship in the company of two bounty hunters. If there was ever a more dramatic turn of events, she’d like to see it.

The hunter she'd spoken to – Rame – had said Tammer had called them. She hoped her friend was all right. The thought of the old clone bearing the brunt of the Empire's wrath made her shudder.

But he was a veteran of both battles and Imperial rule, and knew what he was doing. He would find a way to rebound from the prison attack. He was resourceful, and if anyone could survive in the treacherous and paranoid dictatorship of the Empire, it was him.

She stood, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and padded out of the room in her bare feet. The door sheathed shut behind her as she emerged into the large central corridor that spanned the entire length of the ship.

_Curious..._ Being in the navy, she'd become familiar with all the ships favored by the galaxy's worst scum: pirates, mercenaries, terrorists, criminal organizations, and bounty hunters alike. She could tell the difference between a Z-95 and an ARC-170 starfighter in her sleep.

This ship, though... she didn't recognize anything about it. It bore subtle signs of Imperial design and manufacture, but mostly it was wholly alien. The bulkheads were too smooth, and there was a bank of holoterminals in the central room showing various newscasts and data feeds from across the galaxy. It looked like a private transport rather than any military vessel, and Imperials didn’t care much for advances in the private sector of the hypernautics industry.

She crossed the hall, searching for the refresher, and thumbed the opening stud on a reinforced durasteel door. The panel next to the door buzzed harshly and began barking and hissing at her in a language she didn't understand. A light above the control panel glared red, and a deep _thunk_ suggested that the door had been sealed.

She quickly backed away and raised her hands in surrender, just in case the door had some other kind of security measures in place. The voice fell silent as soon as she stepped away from the door and she let out a long breath. _It would probably be smart to try a different door._

Further down the hall was another door, just as protected as the one before. Unlike the other door, this one opened smoothly, almost beckoning her to enter. When she stepped inside, she realized that she had once again made a mistake.

This sure wasn't the ‘fresher. Large cages, laced with ray-shield lining, were anchored to the walls. The ray-shields were invisible, but shimmered in the air like a heat wave in the desert. Apart from the cages, the room was devoid of any kind of furniture or equipment.

Holding cells for captured prisoners? This was more familiar bounty hunting equipment.

"I suppose you had something to do with this as well," a sullen voice suddenly said. Jay gasped and spun towards the sound.

General Luun was slouched against the wall, held captive within one of the cages. His nose was caked with dried blood, his hair was unkempt, and his once-pristine uniform was smeared with dirt and filth. He looked up at her with tired eyes and hugged his knees close to his chest.

"Leave it to bounty hunters to be bold enough – or stupid enough – to lay siege to an Imperial prison just to get at a single general. And to get  _you_ of course."

Jay shook her head. "No, I was a more recent addition to their plan."

"Oh?" Luun raised an eyebrow. "And how exactly do you fit into their plan?"

She hesitated, wondering how much she should reveal to the general. This was the Imperial who had ordered her execution and torture after all. But another part of her, bolstered by her military training, told her that he was a superior officer. That made his question an order.

"I'm just hitching a ride," she finally said. "Then I'm out of the Empire's way for good."

Luun snorted. "So you think. There's nowhere you can go where we won't find you. We have the entire galaxy within the palm of our hand. No matter where you go, we'll be right behind you."

Jay felt cold fury rise within her, shoving aside her memories of old military protocol. She gestured to the room around her, at the cages in particular. "Seeing the predicament you're in right now,  _sir_ ," she said, putting extra emphasis on the word, "I don't think you'll be one of the ones behind me. I've got a chance at a new life. Wherever  _you're_  going is definitely not going to be as pretty."

Luun glared at her for a few moments. But when Jay just glared right back, he sighed and turned away. It was a few long, silent moments before her curiosity drove her to speak again.

"Why are bounty hunters after someone as insignificant as you in the first place?"

Luun shook his head, still not looking at her. "Some time ago, I was in charge of a prison facility on Ryloth. It was harsh, but secure. Similar to BlueSend in that regard. And my men's favorite pastime happened to be Twi'lek hunting."

Jay's lip curled in disgust. "That's awful."

"It kept the men sharp and their morale high. What was there to worry about? I let it continue. Of course, the actions were discovered and reported and I was subsequently transferred to BlueSend, where there were no natives to incite into rebellion. And since then, certain Twi'lek crime lords have placed substantial prices on my head. Your barbarian friends must have taken a contract to bring me in."

“I don’t think they’re the barbarians here,” she pointed out. "Besides, you should be more thankful they decided to bring you in alive. They didn’t have to.”

Luun glared up at her and sneered. "You think you're in a position to mock me? You think you have it  _better_ than I do? You're almost directly responsible for the destruction of the entire prison! The Empire will have law enforcement on you the  _moment_  you go near a civilized system. Your bounty hunter friends caught me, but it's only a matter of time before _our_ people get  _you_."

" _Your_ people," Jay corrected angrily. "I want nothing to do with the Empire any more. You are all murderous, scum-sucking liars in my eyes. And as for you, Luun? You deserve whatever fate these crime lords have cooked up for you. It's better than what you had planned for me."

As she turned to leave the room, still quivering with rage, Luun laughed and called after, "Vader was right about you! You sold your squadron out for  _credits!_ I think you'll fit right in with these immoral mercenaries."

"You won't be alive to see it," Jay shot back over her shoulder. Before the captive Imperial could retort, the door slammed shut behind her. With a frustrated sigh, she turned into the corridor with the intent to return to her quarters and her bed. Talking to the former general had left a bad taste in her mouth, and she couldn’t wait to put some distance between them.

She didn’t make it far before she ran headlong into what felt like a solid wall of metal. She heard a grunt of surprise as she staggered back against the wall. Looking up to see who – or what – she'd run into, she saw the other bounty hunter.

_What was his name? Ceen something?_

"I'm sorry," the man said, his voice soft and calm. He inclined his helmeted head in apology. "I didn't see you."

"No, it's my fault," Jay said a little distractedly. She was staring at the man, studying him closely. She was interested to finally meet the man who had rescued her from her incarceration.

He was about her height, a little taller since he was able to look down at her slightly. He was clad in dull black battle armor with two gray stripes over the left side of his helmet and had a single large gray stripe down his chest. Though the paint on his armor had faded over the years, it was still kept almost immaculately clean.

Jay frowned at that; the few mercenaries she'd seen during her employ in the military had sported their battle scars with pride. They wore armor that was covered in scratches, blaster burns, even dents. The fact that this man had next to none suggested that he had either seen little of combat or was skilled enough that he hadn't been shot often. Jay couldn't tell which, but was willing to bet on the latter.

An assortment of brown leather ribbons dangled from his right forearm and shoulder in a kind of decorative tassel drape that gave his armor the exotic look of an ancient warrior. And, if Jay saw it correctly, he was wearing some kind of combat skirt, colored black like the rest of his armor. She'd seen stormtrooper commanders and ARC troopers wear similar garments, which they called a  _kama_.

The sinister-looking T-visor of his battle helmet seemed to stare right through her and she shuddered slightly as he regarded her intently, obviously studying her as closely as she was watching him. He bore the unmistakable air of a veteran warrior, yet something about him made her uneasy. She couldn't quite put her finger on what or why.

He finally held out a hand in greeting. "It's good to see you up and about. Rame was worried you were seriously injured."

She slowly shook the offered hand, still staring at him.

“I don’t think we’ve been properly introduced,” he continued. “My name is Cin Vhetin.”

“Jay Kolta,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

She was surprised by his voice, mostly. She had expected either some rough, gravelly, sneering drawl of a pirate or a voice and accent similar to a clone trooper's. The original clone template had supposedly been a Mandalorian, after all.

But his voice was quiet and calm, bearing no accent of any kind. It was almost completely forgettable, which she was sure came in handy in his line of work. It was easy to tell this was no mindless mercenary; a sharp mind lay behind the metal of that helmet. This was a man to be reckoned with.

She linked her arms in front of her, shifting her balance awkwardly from foot to foot. She didn’t want to be under this man’s masked scrutiny any longer than necessary, but she was in debt to him. "You... you're the one who rescued me from that prison, right?”

"I am."

"I remember..." a memory rose unbidden to mind, of the blurry image of a man in black battle armor carrying her through fire and explosions. “I think I remember you helping me out of that cell. Thank you."

He bowed his head, again with that kind of slow warrior's grace. "You're welcome. I believed Tammer’s story that you were innocent, so I agreed to help you escape. Not the smartest decision if you ask Rame, but it was necessary. I couldn’t let you rot in that prison cell”

“You’re… you’re very kind,” she said. She hesitated, then added, “I guess I owe you my life.”

He made a quiet, raspy noise that sounded like a snort. “You don’t owe me a thing, Miss Kolta. I was happy to help. Now if you'll excuse me, I have some business to take care of."

He stepped past her, pulled a pistol from its holster on his hip, and keyed open the door to the room full of cages. As he stepped inside, she heard him say, "Come on, general. You've got a date with a pretty pissed-off crime lord."

A few moments later, he shoved Luun out through the door and led him down the hall at gunpoint. As the bounty hunter passed her, he glanced at her over his shoulder. "Let me deal with this scum first,” he said, “then we'll drop you off at the nearest starport. From there you can get to wherever you need to go."

She nodded and watched him shove his captive down the hall. She felt a strange kind of satisfaction as the whimpering coward was led towards the exit ramp at the back of the ship. Luun was a spineless menace, and he was finally getting what he deserved.

_He wanted to kill me_ , she thought. _He kept pushing to stop the execution delays Tammer set up. And if what he said about Ryloth was true_ _… well, he’s finally getting what’s coming to him. Good riddance._

Then she turned away, towards the sleeping quarters, and didn't look back.


	11. The Kingpin

As chaotic, filthy, and loud as it was, Nar Shadda was a sight for sore eyes.

_Void_ _’s_ exit ramp groaned as it lowered to the landing pad beneath. A thick, muggy breeze tugged Vhetin's  _kama_  about, making him look even more threatening as he strode onto the landing pad amid gusts of coolant steam and downdraft from his ship. The former General Luun was just ahead of him, still held at gunpoint. The Imperial, bound and gagged to avoid any last-minute complications, was shaking so badly it looked like he’d contracted a bad case of Kowakian tremor sickness. He’d also turned a strange shade of green since touching down. He obviously knew what was waiting for him on this landing pad.

As he stepped free of his ship’s shade, his helmet visor darkened to compensate for the blindingly bright lights of Nar Shadda's entertainment district. Thousands of holographic signs offered means of recreation and pleasure to a hundred different species; some of it legal, most of it less so. And that was just in the few hundred feet that he could see with the naked eye.

Nar Shadda, the infamous “Smuggler’s Moon” of Nal Hutta, had a population of trillions, and that population continued to fluctuate every day. The crowded skylanes had been bustling day in and day out for thousands of years and it seemed unlikely that that would stop any time soon. His helmet's audio dampers attempted to muffle the roar of the endless speeders and ships as they passed overhead. They were only partially successful.

He set off across the pad as he saw his employer waiting with a retinue of guards, mercenaries, and majordomos. The blue-skinned Twi'lek crime lord known as King Laatu stood patiently, hands folded over an intricately-carved scepter planted on the ground between his feet. His heavily-tattooed lekku twitched sporadically; the only sign that he was excited for the delivery. His bodyguards – a collection of battle droids and organics – waited on either side with weapons drawn and trained on both General Luun and the bounty hunter escorting him. When Vhetin drew nearer, King Laatu shot him a wide smile and spread his arms in greeting.

“ _Cin Vhetin!_ _”_ the Twi’lek laughed in Huttese. “ _I trust you have a gift to present to me?_ ”

"Here he is, as promised," Vhetin said as he approached, throwing Luun in front of him. The general sprawled onto his front, frantically trying to cover his head lest he receive a swat from King Laatu’s scepter. Two of the King’s bodyguards quickly darted forward and caught him under the arms to haul him to a kneeling position.

Vhetin gestured to the battered old man. "One Imperial General, as per your instructions. He’s a little beat up, but you’ll find he still has plenty of life left in him."

King Laatu drew back his expensive black nexu-fur robe and knelt in front of the former general, reaching out a single long-nailed hand to caress Luun's cheek. The Imperial cringed away, but a guard’s firm hand on his shoulder kept him rooted in place.

" _Ah, my friend_ ," Laatu purred to the quivering man. " _How I have waited for this moment. Twelve long years I have watched you from the shadows as you allowed your men to slaughter my people. You watched from your plush, comfy offices and barely batted an eylash as Twi_ _’lek blood stained the sands of my homeworld_."

Luun - who obviously didn't understand Huttese - moaned in fear. Laatu cocked his head, a smile stretching across his dark blue lips.

" _What, you don't enjoy the company of the great King Laatu_?" He gestured to the city around him. " _You don't enjoy the sights of beautiful Nar Shadda_? _Many labor their whole lives in search of the decadence this city offers. Yet you clearly wish to be anywhere else in the galaxy._ "

Luun still didn't understand, and began to cry harder. King Laatu's face broke into a full grin, revealing stained black teeth. He reached toward the general and pinched his face in one hand.

"Know dis, Impuh'ial," he said in heavily accented Basic. "For all mah many faults, ah still love my people. But ya tink to hunt mah kind for  _sport_?”

He shook his head. “No, no, no, no. Now what we do is dis: ah turn ya loose on Nar Shadda and  _mah_ kind hunt  _you_. We see how sporting yah game truly is."

Luun went so pale, Vhetin was sure his even his slate-gray uniform lightened a few shades.

“You sure that’s smart? Nar Shadda is technically Imperial territory, you know.” The hunter raised a skeptical eyebrow that was hidden behind the faceplate of his helmet. He’d be damned if he went through all the trouble to bring the general here only to have Laatu let him escape. "If he gets away, you have my number."

" _Ah, Vhetin my old friend_ ," the King laughed, reverting back to Huttese, " _you can trust my men to ensure this slime doesn_ _’t escape. Now tell me, how has the galaxy been treating you?_ "

"Better than in the past," Vhetin didn't bother to speak Huttese. He knew Laatu could understand him regardless.

Laatu stepped forward and grasped Vhetin's shoulders in a ceremonial Twi'lek embrace. " _It means a great deal to me that you were willing to hunt down this... this_ schutta," he spat in Luun's general direction as he said it, " _even at the price you proposed._

" _My people are in your debt_ ," he said. “ _You have done me a great service I will not soon forget._ _”_

He barked at his thugs to step forward. One of them, a Gammorean, lumbered up with a datapad in his meaty hand. He held it out to Vhetin with a snorting grumble.

Vhetin took the pad as King Laatu said, " _Plug in the number of your account, and the money will be transferred with the push of a button. I_ _’m sure you are familiar with the process._ "

Vhetin nodded and entered the number of one of his many "ghost" accounts; credit accounts that served as waypoints for the money as it passed through a confusing chain of different societies, banks, and organizations before finally ending up in his private account, safely laundered and completely untraceable.

Once satisfied that the money was all there, he handed the pad back to Laatu, who tucked it into his dark robe. Their business concluded, the King bowed with another black-toothed smile. " _I wish you many happy hunts for your future, Master Vhetin. Preferably in my employment, not against it._ "

Vhetin inspected his personal credit summary on his HUD and found to no surprise that the money was all there. Laatu was eccentric, but he was certainly a reliable employer. That was refreshing.

"Keep coming through on your payments, Laatu," he said, "and I'll keep coming back for work."

" _Of course. It's just good business. Now I must bid you farewell. As you say_ _…_ Ret’urcye mhi, vod."

Vhetin bowed his head, genuinely impressed at the crime lord’s usage of the Mandalorian language _._ Laatu shot him one last grin. Then he spun, his robe flowing out behind him, and barked at his thugs. " _Bring the Imperial! We have much to do!_ "

Vhetin turned silently and strode back up the ramp into his ship. This job was done. Time to leave Nar Shadda behind.


	12. The Decision

Jay keyed open the door to the cockpit. The two bounty hunters were seated within, each busy with their own separate tasks.

Vhetin was piloting the ship towards the nearest starport, staring rigidly out the viewport and keeping his helmeted gaze fixed on incoming ships. His fingers flashed across the ship's controls with a familiarity that came only with years of experience. Rame was on comms with someone in the adjacent seat, but exactly who was a mystery.

"Yes, yes, we're both fine. We have one last thing to take care of, then we're on our way home. Uh-huh. Love you too, _cyar_ _’ika_. Good-bye."

Jay paused, surprised. Was Rame married? She had always thought that bounty hunters were ruthless, greedy anarchists, barely above criminals in the social pecking order. Such a lifestyle left little time for meaningful relationships – or so she had thought.

_I guess that's another prejudice proved wrong_.

Rame finally swiveled in his seat to greet her, a friendly smile on his face. "Hi, there. Thought of the place you're going to spend your glorious vacation?"

She fidgeted a little. "Actually yes. Mandalore."

Her words were met with exactly the reaction she had been expecting. There was silence in the cockpit. Rame blinked a few times, uncomprehending, then laughed. Cin Vhetin remained silent, focused on piloting the ship.

"I-I mustn't have heard you right,” Rame said. “It almost sounded like you said—"

"You heard just fine," Jay said. "I want to go to Mandalore. With you two."

The older man raised an eyebrow and glanced in Vhetin's direction. The other bounty hunter made no motion to acknowledge his friend’s gaze.

"That's... very flattering," the older man said after a few long moments. "But Mandalore isn't exactly the galaxy's greatest vacation spot. I mean, I guess the woods are pretty and Keldabe's a riot over the weekend when all the drunks come out to play, but-"

She shook her head. "You don't understand. I don't want to go there to lay low or hide. I want to become a bounty hunter. And I want you to teach me."

It looked as if words had completely abandoned Rame; he obviously hadn't expected her to make such a decision. He scratched his head in confusion, and even the uncommunicative Vhetin tipped his head towards them, listening intently to the conversation despite his feigned indifference.

"But why?" Rame asked. "You seem like a nice enough girl. Why not head for Naboo, find yourself an equally nice guy and, you know, settle down? Why do you want to be a  _bounty hunter_?"

"You sound very disparaging of your own profession," Vhetin quietly pointed out.

Rame shot a glare at the man, then turned back to Jay in expectation of an answer.

"I want to become a bounty hunter," she explained, "because before Vhetin dropped him off, I had a conversation with General Luun. And I suddenly realized that the galaxy is filled to the  _brim_  with people like him: corrupt, arrogant, manipulative, cowardly  _schuttas_  who need to be shown that they don't control everyone."

She eased herself into the gunner’s seat, linking her hands in her lap. “I read the reports from Malachor after I was imprisoned. My superior officers branded me a traitor and put all the blame for that loss on my head. They deserve to be punished.”

Rame glanced again at Vhetin, but said nothing. Jay took a deep breath and continued, “But they won’t be punished. Not by other Imperials at least. I figure if the Mandalorians can give me a shot at bringing bastards like that to some kind of justice… that’s something I want to be part of.”

Rame raised an eyebrow. "So... you want to single-handedly make the galaxy a better place? That’s noble, but…"

"No." Jay shook her head. "I’m not some kind of altruistic Jedi. But I do want to punish the people who framed me and threw me in prison. Them and everyone else like them."

For a third time, Rame glanced at Vhetin. Jay got the distinct impression that in the end, all this was up to him.

After a moment the black-armored bounty hunter shrugged. "If that's her choice..."

"I hope you understand what you're doing, Jay,” Rame said, deadly serious now. “Bounty hunting isn't all guns, grenades, and girls like they show in holovids. It's a lot more intense than you'd think.”

“I understand.”

“You'd have to be trained from the ground up. All new tactics, all new weapons, everything. And, no offense, but you'd have to be a _lot_ tougher than you are right now."

She nodded. "I can do that."

"You're sure?"

"Positive. I've never been so sure of anything in my life."

She was telling the truth. While in the navy she had befriended many people and had enjoyed her time there. But in the back of her mind, she'd always known that she was only there because she had exhausted all her other options. Now she felt like she was making a serious decision, one that she knew would pay off in the end.

Vhetin set the ship on autopilot for a moment and spun in his seat. With a sigh, he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms across his armored chest, fixing her with a powerful stare that she could almost feel even through the tinted T-visor of his helmet. She stared right back, confident that he couldn’t change her mind now.

"Once you decide to do this,” the hunter said, “there's no going back. You either give it everything you've got or you die."

"Is that a threat?"

"Just a simple fact. This galaxy has too many amateur hunters who have no clue what they're doing and are more than willing to kill a fellow hunter for a few extra credits. It’s a rough trade by nature. The margin for error is very,  _very_  small.”

He jerked his thumb over his shoulder, gesturing to the bustling metropolis of Nar Shadda still visible through the front viewport. “Out there, it's survival of the fittest. Kill or be killed."

She hesitated, pondering his words. They didn’t change her mind. "I understand."

He stared at her for a moment longer, long enough that she began to think he didn’t believe her. But then he nodded, satisfied, and turned back to the ship's controls without another word.

"All right then,” Rame sighed, still looking uncertain. “Mandalore it is. Cin?"

"Already on our way," Vhetin replied. The deck trembled as he pulled out of Nar Shadda's skylanes and headed for open space. A few minutes later, the space outside the viewport began to burn red-hot as the ship fought its way out of the moon's atmosphere. Jay gripped the edges of her chair as the deck beneath her feet began to shake violently.

Once they had broken free of the atmosphere and the ship's interior had calmed, Rame looked to her again, giving her one last chance to change her mind.

"Point of no return right here," he said. "You're sure you know what you're doing?"

She took a deep breath, knowing this was either going to be the best choice she had ever made or the worst possible mistake. She thought she would feel more nervous making such a life-altering decision. The entire galaxy was literally lying in wait before her, and this choice would doubtlessly plunge her into a part of it she couldn’t even begin to imagine.

But her heartbeat was steady and calm, and no butterflies fluttered in her stomach. The decision was already made; something told her the decision had been made the moment her superiors had locked her away.

_The Jedi used to talk about destiny and how the Force occasionally influences a person_ _’s life_ , she thought as she watched the stars glitter beyond the ship’s front viewport. _Maybe this is what it feels like._

She nodded silently. “I want to do this.”

"Then buckle up," Vhetin said, reaching for the control panel in front of him, "and prepare for lightspeed."

He pulled a lever down, and the stars became blurs. With an explosion of light and sound, the ship blasted into hyperspace, leaving the glowing orb of Nar Shadda far behind.

 ~~~~~~~~

_To be continued in Star Wars: White Snow: Preparation_ _…_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank everyone who took the time to read this story in its entirety. It's been quite an adventure writing this series over the years, and I'm excited to re-edit the stories and introduce them to a brand new audience.
> 
> Until next time, happy reading! As always, reviews and comments are always appreciated.
> 
> Star Wars and related characters, locations, etc, belong to Lucasfilm and Disney. I own only the content of my own creation.


	13. Next Time

_Next Time..._

BlueSend base has been destroyed, and the bounty posted on the head of Imperial Admiral Luun, claimed. Now, bounty hunter Cin Vhetin has an even bigger problem to worry about: How to keep Jay Kolta, the prisoner under his protection, hidden from the Empire?

If she is discovered, it will mean execution for all involved. If not, then Jay will begin her long path down the road to becoming a lethal and ruthless bounty hunter.

All that stands in her way is the full might of the Galactic Empire.


End file.
